For her
by fallen2far
Summary: Nightwing fights the Justice League to save a girl he loves. 9 of 9 chapters finished nonedited.
1. Prologue Chapter

This is a submission is for the dragonbat challenge. I've never written a fan fiction before, so any criticism would be greatly appreciated.

That said, I'd like to stress the only reason I wrote this story, is because I'm polarizing the inaction in the book with "unrealistic" action. I know it's not justified, but regardless…

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Chapter 1

Metropolis is truly an amazing city. Poets have written of Babylon for thousands of years. Each of these words and more can be given to Metropolis. Whether a building is made of iron or concrete, the colors the city itself presents can only be found on an artist's palate.

The sun shines so brightly in this city that even in the heaviest downpour of rain; one must use UV protective eyewear. The city was specifically designed this way. Unlike Gotham or Star City, streets were designed wider as the building became taller. When old and crumpled buildings were replaced by towering sky-touchers, the city would move the buildings farther from the street to allow the light to pass between them. Three or four buildings would become two with up to five times their original heights. Metaphorically, if there were ever an alley that was deemed too dark, the city would have the ground raise up to meet the light.

And then there is the life. The life is not only captivating, but it is also engulfing. The people allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the extraordinary. A tourist would look at the citizens and say that they were desensitized by the redundancy of it, but they aren't. They are a part of the existence. Those that work on the city from the young teenagers working at the carwash to the middle aged road construction worker have a pride and inspiration. They have an icon. They have a Superman. The people allow themselves to be a part of all of it. From the amazing sights of heroes triumphing to the fearful (and frequent) nightmare of Armageddon to the absurdity of terrorists who use disco balls to threaten the animal kingdom of the local petting zoo, the people of Metropolis allow themselves to be a part of it because of the sense of security and compassion from the one most extraordinary being in known existence.

The last son of Krypton has well made this his home. Accepted by many, relented by few. His is a character that is rarely in question. In this city, more people have faith in him than in their own religion. Despite this, he has wrought unthinkable evils onto this city. Kalaback and Darksied. Brainiac and Gog. Lex Luthor. All things of this city evil were brought because of him. Yet the people still look to him for hope and courage. People have come here to cause destruction to this beauty. Some of them are justified. One such man was recruited. As of yet, his name is unimportant. He doesn't want to be here to attempt to deny the citizens their greatest inhabitant, but he has no choice in the matter.

One of the few abandoned complexes cited for reconstruction is where he is right now. His connections made it possible for him to work undeterred. His objective is capture. Dead or alive wasn't specified primarily because it isn't an option. Few can possibly kill him. No man can, though. The man in the room is a veteran in this business. He has a costume and everything. He is one of the best trained people in the world. He has no beams coming out of his eyes, telepathy from his mind or invulnerability to everything but a small green rock. All he has in advantage to the incredible Superman is summed up into two things. Intelligence and surprise. Intelligence isn't as far of an advantage as one would think. This Superman is by no means a rookie. Having watched Superman fight the good fight as long as he can remember, there is no way, he can be perceived as inexperienced.

Surprise in this mission is essential. Any little bit helps. The top half of his body is covered with a black cloth. None of his skin can be seen. His head is covered in a layered sash making it difficult to recognize any of his features. The quarry in question can look through everything but lead. The weave of this material is interwoven with traces of lead to mesh any attempted "through" view.

As the man in the wrapped face mask looks down from the fifth story window of the building complex four doors from the Daily Bugle Tower, he can't help but fear that his plan isn't perfect. After only having been given six days to plan and set up the stage for the coup, pressed doesn't even begin to describe it. If he fails, she dies. Being under constant surveillance himself, he can't delay or derail his tormentors. He was allowed to request objects or blessings from allies and close friends, but his requests were recorded and he was prevented from informing them of what he needed them for. If he escapes surveillance, she dies. He can't signal for help or send up caveat. Any radio waves they catch plotting betrayal, she dies.

Despite this, he was able to get one small message out. It wouldn't have been intercepted, but at the same time, he can't be sure it can be received at all. There's only one way out of this. And it requires his best friend to pay attention to the smallest detail…

And the tension builds.

Despite this one way out, he realizes that he needs to concentrate on making sure that he, himself succeeds. After all, the job of taking down Superman has been attempted more times than countable and rarely successful. There is a hope that Superman may have been informed and will play along, but that's a chance he can't allow himself to take.

He does a last minute inventory check. Half these toys were made built from scratch recently. They're untested on the field, but there are three other backup objects just in case of any one failing. Each item has a specific purpose. Those toys not on him now are laid on the playing field throughout the city. Planning the strategy was painstakingly complex. Timing's most important. He can move faster than a speeding bullet. He races with Flash for fun. If this plan is unsuccessful it is because one of the objects is too far away at the time it's needed or if backup arrives too early.

His JLA-coms informed him that he had returned from a "galactic conflict." Nonetheless, he is here in the city. Worldly matters happen so frequently to him. He has to look to make sure Superman enters the building.

Just then, he sees a large man running. He's dressed in a blue suit and thick prescription glasses. He's running after an MTA city bus. With one a newspaper under his left arm and his hand flailing frantically with his left, he's desperately trying to catch the bus. The man in black cracks a smile thinking to himself, "does he have to try this hard because his only mask is a pair of glasses, or is he just a social masochist."

He quickly remembers his situation and prepares. The man in black pulls a cell phone and dials the phone. From the other line he hears a female voice. "Hello, what is the basis of your emergency?"

"I've got a dirty bomb here at 2316 N. Luther Street. Give me…uh… 12 million dollars or I set it off."

He picks up two thick lead covered bucklers and puts them on. "They weigh more than I thought," he thinks.

"Where is your location sir?"

The man in black pauses and thinks for a second. "I said 2316 N. Luther Street."

"You're going to set off a bomb right next to you?"

The man in black suddenly realizes that he wasn't planning on a smart mouthed operator. "Look lady, get the money ready or I'll set this thing off wiping out the city block and maybe make a new super villain or two."

With a quick glance, he looks down at a small beeping light at the underbelly of the buckler. The message is still being sent, but there's no way to make sure it's working. Pushing it to the back of his mind, he picks up two batons and places them in his thigh guard. He begins the walk down to the first floor. Just inside the lobby of the abandoned twelve story building, he takes a deep breath. He steps outside to the crowd of people in the street. A few people notice the hooded figure and move away quickly, but some just ignore him either to busy to care or have seen it too many times in this city.

Within two minutes, he hears sirens in the distance. The people look at the man in black. More of the citizens keep their distance. That's good it'll keep the bystanders away. They need their space. He then sees two cop cars stop with four armed MPD in the back. He pulls out a devise and presses a button.

At that moment, Clark Kent, a mild mannered reporter, got into the 37th floor of the Daily Planet. The spacious surroundings filled with sounds clicking from the keyboards and the flickering of the computer monitors. All reporters acting busy because they believe people still read the newspaper. Mr. Kent breathes as if he'd just run a marathon. A loud "Damnit Clark" echoed throughout the office. Gray haired man comes storming across the room. "If I told you once I told you a thousand times," screams Perry White, the editor and chief of the paper. "You don't have to come in on time. I've given up years ago on you showing up here when you're supposed to."

"I know sir."

"Don't get me wrong, it's a welcome surprise to see you being here early; however I don't want you're showing up wheezing like you're having a heart attack."

"I know sir."

"And what's with this whole sir thing? There aren't any interns here, so we don't need this whole 'sir' thing."

"You're right sir… I mean Chief… Mr. White."

Perry rolls his eye and walks off.

"My God, it just goes in one ear and out the other with that…"

Taking deep breaths to calm down, Mr. Kent sits down at his computer. He then heard a whisper from behind him.

"Are you still doing the whole incompetent bit?"

Turning in his chair he sees the beautiful brunet Mrs. Kent smiling back. "I thought you gave up that routine."

"Too thick?"

Lois rubs his shoulders whispering. "You try too hard." She then kisses him on cheek and turns around to go to her wok place. Clark smiles. Lois sometimes isn't sure if the rubdowns she does really help at all, but Clark's smiling now. Even though he's the man of steel, he can still feel that tender touch. Most of the time it's even more important than the kiss.

His smile quickly fades as he hears sirens in the distance. Three blocks away and heading toward the planet. Usually, he tries to ignore those sirens unless there are three of them turning on at the same time. That's when there's a definite problem. These sirens are by the Bugle. He's always more jumpy around the ones he cares most about. Just then another siren blares on about seven blocks away. Clark's interest is peaked now. He starts to type unreadable gibberish on his computer as he concentrates on pinpointing the sound. They park outside a building a couple of blocks away. He hears a huge explosion. He looks through the wall to see two cop cars park in front of a costumed man. Eight floors above them, all the glass is shattered and the walls are on fire. Clark gets up and says loudly, "Okay Lois, I'll check out that lead." Then he notices; she's talking to someone else.

Lois looks up at Clark quizzically. "Um… I mean, that lead you told me about last night… with the… er… guy." She pinches her nose looks down and takes a deep breath. She then looks up at Clark again and mouths, "Just go… no one cares."

Looking around he sees that everyone is too busy working to even notice he's there at all. Nodding, he grabs a notepad and runs out the door to the elevator.

Outside, the man in black had knocked out two of the officers with one baton and tackled the one farthest to the right before it landed safely in his hand. He had set off an explosion on the eighth floor to either get the Superman's attention or to distract him later. He instead decided to scare away onlookers with the explosion, but they just wouldn't go away. The glass shards falling to the sidewalk hadn't prevented a single person from ogling the situation. Holding him he shouts out to the remaining officer. "I'm only going to say this once. Keep everyone back."

The remaining police officer ignores the command and pulls a gun on the masked vigilante. He lean back, leaps in the air and kicks the officer across the temple. A crowd had gathered around the fight. He quickly screamed, "Everyone back or I'll set off another one."

The crowd remained motionless. He raised his hand high above him with his thumb on the trigger of the same device that caused the previous explosion. Suddenly, as if by magic, his hands felt a searing pain. They were forced open and the device was removed from his hand. The man looked up above the crowd to see the Superman crushing the device above him. The crowd looked on in awe of their hero. He hovered high above a fairly good distance away.

The imposing figure above him made the man in black know that the challenge was on.


	2. Chapter 1

Hi. For the record, I know that no one will either believe this story or find it plausible. This story is specifically reactionary to the inaction in Nightwing and inability. I realize that going the exact opposite direction is not the best reaction, but I figure it's better to say the story and accept the criticism as to the unbelievable aspects just to get the contrary out there. Understand, all you Superman fans, this isn't continuity. I would never submit this story as continuity. This is just me having fun.

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Amasked black figure is facing the most iconic figure hovering ahead of him. Never before has his fear of failure been so strong. He has had the fear many times, especially recently, but desperation numbs the fear. He has to be strong. He has to be the acrophobic that leaves the burning apartment.

Looking ahead of him, the man in black held out a foot long Escrima stick perfectly horizontal. He hoped for some reaction from Superman.

"Is that supposed to be a challenge?" was the man of steel's response. In those words, the man in black's heart sank deeper than ever. He doesn't know. Either he didn't receive the message or the message was never sent at all. More importantly, he has to take down Superman by himself. As improbable a task as that is, he has to, or she dies.

Immediately, he needs distance. A flare would only work if he was too surprised to flinch. Sonics would work as a distraction, but Superman is hovering over ten feet above the ground, about twelve feet away. He has to be closer for the pulse to have a staggering effect. The man in black points the Escrima stick toward the crowd to bring Superman in. Superman thinks he's firing some kind of weapon at the crowd and leans forward. With a flick of his thumb, the man in black activates the sonic pulse.

Nothing happens.

Just then, the man notices the red pupils of Superman. He's destroyed the pulse in the Escrima stick. With his heat vision. "This guy's got too many powers," the man thinks to himself.

"Have you got any other tricks in that lead suit, or are going to do the right thing and turn yourself in."

With the odds coming into the equation, he runs away from Superman. As he takes his eighth step, Superman is already three feet above the ground. Five feet away.

"You know, you're only making this harder on yourself?"

The man in black stops and runs backwards three steps, turns around and runs the opposite direction. Then Superman appears a foot in front of him with the large "S" at eye level.

"If it makes you feel any better, you lasted longer than a lot of other guys."

The man in black stepped back and threw a right hook at him.

If Superman hadn't turned his head and rolled with the punch, the opponent would have really hurt himself. He thinks to himself how much he hates these moments. Everyone knows that he's powerful, but they always think that they could get away. Usually it's better, when they realize their silliness and go home with their pride being the most damaged thing. But the risks these people take is annoying to the Kryptonian.

The man in black winces in pain as he feels the lead lining in his gloves in the impact. The Kevlar cushioned the blow, but the damage is already swelling his fist. Clutching the sonic pulse Escrima stick in his left hand, the man in black swings across the solar plexus of Superman. The Escrima stick splinters apart at impact with smoke and sparks shooting out of it. The man in black followed through with his swing so he could grab a second Escrima stick from his thigh.

The fact is Superman has no recognizable faults. Everyone knows that Superman is vulnerable to kryptonite. However that stuff is practically impossible to get a hold of. Then there's red sunlight which is hard to recreate (especially outdoors in Metropolis).

The only other known weakness is bending the rules of physics with magic. But it's not like there are many magicians one can go to. It's not like the man in black could have gone to, say a Dr. Fate, Jason Blood or Tempest and ask them to bless a Escrima stick to be as powerful a hit to anyone he would generally hit. Even if he did, Superman moves so fast that he would have to let someone hit him with such an enchanted Escrima stick.

That said; the man in black, as quickly as he could, swings the Escrima stick across the face of Superman. The blow takes Superman by surprise and is knocked off balance by the sudden jolt of pain across his face. With surprising, speed and accuracy, the mystery man successfully hits four more hits at three major pressure points Superman then begins to notice the sonic Escrima stick that broke in half has spewed so much smoke that it's created a thick cloud making it difficult to see. With a quick slap of his hands, Superman is able to dissipate the ever expanding gas. As the smoke clears, Superman sees that the man has disappeared.

Listening very carefully, he hears him. His heartbeat is over a half a mile away going on five. Obviously, the man in black had kept his super speed powers as secret as his magical weapon. He looks in the direction using his super vision, but is unable to see him. He begins to think that he is microscopic or invisible. The heartbeat has stopped moving at seven and a half miles away. Superman is there before the author of the story finished that last sentence. Looking at the source of the heartbeat, he gives a quick look of frustration. There, imbedded in street lamppost eight feet above ground level is a miniature device giving off a fake heartbeat sound. The impact was obviously from it being fired while Superman took the hit to the head. Now he could hear the static imperfections of the recording. He probably missed them before because it was muffled in his costume.

"This is getting annoying," he thinks to himself. By now it's obvious that this guy's only goal is to beat "the Superman". The explosion was just to get his attention. Ever since he's put on the costume, every person wants to prove themselves as the greatest threat to the "most powerful being". They usually come up with some hair brained invention and threaten innocent people with it. He picks up a communicator from his belt. "Is anyone up there?"

A calm and deep voice is heard from the communication device. "I am present Superman. I was going over the logs at the Slab. Do you need assistance?"

"Are there any camera's over Metropolis?"

"No, presently we are over Keystone City. We won't be in that area for approximately three hours, twenty tree minutes."

"Can you do a quick telepathic scan for any obsessed minds or criminals running away?

"Nothing really stands out at this distance. Do you require me to send for more support on your location?"

"No. It's just your average cape chaser. I just didn't want to waste too much time looking for him." I'll call back if it's a problem.

Instantly, he returns to where he was. Looking along the streets in all directions, he doesn't see him. He uses his x-ray vision to look through a few buildings into their alleys. There's a possibility that he entered the lead lined utility tunnels under the city. If that happened, he may very well have lost him completely. He begins to hover up ten feet above the ground looking along the streets to see if he can see any utility lines opened.

Three blocks away, he sees something. He lifts up higher above the ground looking down on the ground. He sees a lifted manhole cover. That is halfway fortunate. It's possible that he didn't know the difference between the utilities and the sewers. The sewers run below the utilities, but they're block lined, not lead. The sewer tunnels are a little bit wider than the utility tunnels and are half filled with sewer water. If he can see the ripples against the wall, he may be able to pinpoint his exact location. He flies higher into the sky looking down at the rushing water looking for anything that might result from him going against the stream.

He's a good forty stories up following the ripples of water twelve feet below the street level. This guy is too good. He's used to this though. He's always looking down on the people; looking for them underneath him. It's not because he's pompous or anything. He's literally always above them. He then thinks he sees something. There's an obstruction a block ahead of him. It could be him or it could be a…

As he finishes this thought, a flash grenade explodes in front of his face. A flash grenade is designed to blind a person for twelve seconds. His vision was zooming trough the streets to look at ripples of water. That flash of light was physically painful to the man of steel. Instantly the man in black landed on his shoulders with a cloth in his right hand. And a steel cable tied to his left.

(The man in black had used a preset grapple hook to reach high in the air to assault Superman from the air thus severely straining his shoulder. He'd removed the manhole cover as a distraction.)

Landing on the kryptonian is a strange experience. He's a hovering immovable object in the middle of nowhere. That is definitely not something that is easily explained. Searing in pain from the grenade, Superman opened his mouth slightly. The man in black covered the mouth of Superman with a cloth and forced some kind of pill into his mouth. Mistakenly, he breathed in the pill. As he removed the cloth, foam began to spread quickly out of his mouth exploiting his only unknown weakness.

All organisms need oxygen. Superman has flown in outer space and can survive by using his powerful lungs to suck in the random air molecules for a short time, but for extended periods of time, he needs some form of breathing apparatus. To survive, he needs air.

The foam quickly began to spread until it spilled out of his mouth in gallons. The man in black pressed a button on his buckler and then as quickly as humanly possible, he attached the steel cable to superman's ankle. A huge explosion is heard above them as C4 exploded beneath the statue on top of the Daily Bugle building.

"Too much is happening at the same time" he thinks. Superman looks up to see the explosion. He feels is lungs fill up with the foam preventing him from inhaling a full breath. He could just use his industrial strength lungs to expel the foam, but the explosion distracted him long enough to prevent him from concentrating on his own breathing. As he coughs up a couple gallons of foam, he feels the man in black let go and fall toward the streets below. Before he falls twenty feet, Superman had already grabbed the villain by his ankle. Then he noticed that cable attached to his ankle was attached to the statue above them. The 20 ton statue began to freefall toward the ground. Coughing up more foam, he let go of the man in black and flew up to catch the statue. The foam was expanding so fast now; it was drooling out even as Superman breathed in.

Slowly, he began to fell flush. The man in black threw a de-cell cable line to swing to a halt on the street level looking up to see Superman straining to keep the statue up. Usually, he could move this without a second thought, but if you've ever tried to bench a small weight with a terrible cough, you'd know that you can never really get the right breath to do the job. As he was able to get to the top of the building he felt his vision begin to grow blurry. He used his heat vision to secure the monument. He then looked down to see the man in black run along the streets.

Superman began to fly toward him, but halfway to the ground, Superman began to feel faint. The foam escaping from is moth wasn't letting any oxygen into his lungs. As much as he coughed, the foam was continually filling his lungs. He lets his body go limp. "Once on the ground," he thinks, "I can concentrate on this damn foam." As his starts to fall toward the ground, he sees the onlookers oblivious to the danger they're in. He weighs a good 500 lbs. If he fell the rest of the way, there's a good chance he'd kill someone from the impact with his head now blazing with pain and his body on fire, begging for necessary oxygen, he stops himself twelve feet above the citizens of the city. The foam is not relenting. He closes his mouth, but that just stops it from spreading out. He still has to fill his lungs with O2. Superman slows his decent to the ground. His muscles all over his body are on fire and his mind is suffering the worst case of vertigo. He begins to try to concentrate on forcing the foam out of his mouth, but he couldn't find the energy to expand his lungs with a good enough force to expel the foam. He began to loose consciousness. On his hands and knees, he looked up to see the man in black pull out a vile. That was the last thing Superman saw. He collapsed on the street, unable to move.

The man in black quickly turned over Superman and emptied the contents of the vile into his mouth. Quickly the foam dissipated leaving a purplish sticky go in its stead. Putting his head to the large "S" insignia, the man breathed a sigh of relief.

If he didn't hear a heartbeat, the man didn't know what he was supposed to do then. He put his wrist to his mouth and said, "I got him. Send a transport."

As he stood up, he felt a solid wall hit him across his back. The man went flying a few feet in the air and landed in the median. He looked behind him to see a large glowing boxing glove rise up into the air and down into a large emerald ring.

"I don't know what you did, but it's obviously your biggest mistake," came the sound of the looming voice of a king. Expanding his view and concentrating on his vision, he saw before him, floating in the air, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter and the Green Lantern. On the ground he could see Aquaman, and somewhere in the background, he knows that Batman is looming. The Justice League of America.

"No," he thinks to himself. "Not yet. I'm too far from the building. They're too early. I can't take them now…"

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I'm going to end the chapter here for three reasons. One, it's three o'clock in the morning and I haven't had much sleep. (This is obvious from the quality of the story) Secondly, I may have gone too long for the challenge. Thirdly, I have no idea how to go from here. Please send me comments on what you think (i.e. you suck). Keep in mind, this is a fan fiction. I know Superman would most likely never be beaten like this, but it's the best I can come up with on a six pack of Dew and sleep deprivation. Thank you.


	3. Chapter 2

I'm so sorry. I've just been proof reading and I've realized that I've been mixing my tenses. I'd like to blame my inexperience at writing, but I don't find that a proper excuse. It's going to take me a while to correct that on account I don't have constant online access to make the corrections. Again; any help, criticism and advice will be greatly appreciated.

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"I don't know what you did, but it's obviously your biggest mistake," comes the sound of the looming voice of a king. Expanding his view, he sees before him, floating in the air, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter and the Green Lantern. On the ground he could see Aquaman, and somewhere in the background, he knows that Batman is looming. The Justice League of America.

"No," he thinks to himself. "Not yet. I'm too far from the building. They're too early. I can't take them now…"

Wonder Woman speaks loudly with her full almost poetic voice; her eyes never moving away from her opponent, "John, check on Superman."

John lowers himself to the ground and feels Superman's wrist.

"I think I have a pulse here."

Wonder Woman, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "J'onn?"

"I am unaware as to this man's motives. He is somehow shielding himself from my influence."

Wonder Woman opens here eyes looking at the dark clad assailant. "You will be given only one option. I suggest you try and explain yourself now."

Cautiously, he stands up with his mystical Escrima stick in his hand. He holds it out horizontally in front of him. Five seconds to an eternity later, the man in black feels his heart drop. They had no reaction… at all. They don't know. Then he realizes that the Flash isn't there. His one out is no longer an option.

The odds are impossible. He frantically tries to think of a way out of this. He's too far from the building. He's got a few tricks, but none of them will work on all of them at the same time.

"Are you challenging us?" comes the words of Aquaman, a smile creeping across his face.

Five of the most powerful people in the world are standing in front of him.

Any reasonable individual would have given up by now. Either that or they would try to talk their way out of it. Circumstances are different now. If he fails to save her, it's not going to be because he fails to try.

With that, he pushes a release button and quickly swings the Escrima stick behind him extending it four times into a quarter staff. Holding it behind him, he matches up his opponents. J'onn could end the fight in a second, but he stays back and fights with telepathy so others can have their "opportunity" to be heroes. Batman's opportunistic and will only hit when he's sure of an attack to end the fight. Most likely, he's staying at a third or fourth floor elevation in the limited shadows. John has the most power, but he's developed a habit of only attacking when he's told to. Arthur favors his…

"Nightwing, wait."

The Flash comes on the scene. He got the message. The others are taken aback by the Flash's revelation. They look at the Flash and then back at the man. He removes the shawl from his face to reveal the accusations validity. The shock prevents them from acting out right.

Immediately Nightwing calls out "B". Without hesitation, the Flash runs as fast as he could to an alley becoming nothing but a red blur. For the brief instance, one could see a black streak in the road as it is raced away. Wonder Woman, having seen the Flash grab Batman, rises higher off the ground and says, "You three handle this." With that she's gone just as fast.

And then there were three. Now all Nightwing has to do is take down a king of Atlantis, the most powerful weapon in the known universe and a telepathic shape-shifting Superman. How hard could that be?

As Arthur's eyes trailed away from Wonder Woman, he was the first to follow Nightwing jump down an upturned manhole quarterstaff in hand.

"Did you see around his head?" John asks referring to a thin metallic band around his head.

"It must be what's blocking his thoughts from me."

"So who's going after him?"

Landing twelve feet below the street level, Nightwing stands on a landing just before the five foot drop into the sewer water. After quickly looking up, he jumps into the two feet of flowing sewer water below him. He touches his mask and the lenses over his eyes glow green making the dark tunnels visible for seven feet ahead of him. He races upstream down the tunnel.

He quickly thinks to himself, "Which one are they going to send?" He then hypothesizes that they all know that Arthur is the only one of them that would do well in close quarters. He quickly places a couple of pre-set proximity high-impact stun grenades ahead of and behind him. He then jumps up onto a four foot ledge above the water with his quarterstaff in hand. At that moment, he sees the green light falling into the sewers.

"No. They know it's too dark down here and would send the one member in the team that could produce light; Green Lantern." Nightwing looks into the water trying to locate where he left those pesky grenades. Could they have flowed down stream with the water? Even if he could locate them, he can't just pick up a proximity grenade. Nor could he let one set off so GL can know where he is. "Stupid, Stupid, Stupid." He thinks. He looks around him trying to find something… anything. Think.

Then above him and four feet to the left, he sees a connecting trap to the utility tunnels above him. The steel door has two rusted metal lever handles hanging from it. With the quarter staff in hand, he pole vaults himself toward the steel door. His left hand just reaches the handle when an all too familiar green wall comes up from be hind him. Nightwing quickly uses his quarter staff to launch himself as far away from wherever the grenades could possibly be. He rolls as he hits the water and is engulfed in the dreadful smell.

As Nightwing gets up, he crosses his hands and grabs two gadgets from both his bucklers. One item he places in his mouth as he throws the other behind him at the Green Lantern. A large trail of smoke follows the projectile toward the green glow. Quickly and effortlessly, the Lantern creates a fan blade with his ring. The fan blows the smoke back toward it origination and dissipates. He's vanished again.

Green Lantern still floating two feet above the water, creates a giant sift five feet in front of him. He then drops it in the water and moves it forward. Sure enough, Nightwing is hiding in the water and stands up. He rapidly throws a handful of wing-dings. Green Lantern easily blocks them and screams, "That's enough."

The sift turns into a flowing beam of light that wraps around Nightwing bounding his entire body. Nightwing is brought closer to within two feet of John and asks, "What the hell is this about Nightwing?"

Nightwing opens his mouth to reveal a small device between his teeth. He bites down emanating a bright flair-like light distracting him long enough for Nightwing to get his right hand free. He roughly jabs two fingers far into John's mouth causing him to have a gag reaction. The slight distraction is enough for John to loose concentration, fall into the water and release Nightwing. The sewer is now once again completely dark. Nightwing quickly holds John in a Fujiwa - neck and shoulder lock. Having the leverage he is able to hold John just above the water to not drown him and still have the ability to stop the flow of blood to the brain.

Suddenly, Nightwing begins to feel a searing pain in his leg as he feels himself being flung across the tunnel.

"Get off of him!" comes the familiar voice of the king. Nightwing winces from the pain and rolls with his fall. He moves deeper into the tunnels and in the comfortable darkness.

John then glows brightly enough for Arthur and John to see more clearly.

"Are you all right John?"

"I'm fine, he just surprised me."

"We have to be careful. The bat-clan uses more tricks and traps than most of our villains."

"Ending this quickly will be easy."

Looking back in the direction of Nightwing, Arthur yells, "If it's a fight you want boy, I'll be too happy to oblige!" He starts walking in that direction when the light behind him begins to fade. He quickly looks behind him toward Green Lantern.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know. I can't seem to..." John tries to stand up straight, but his knees buckle beneath him. Arthur goes to help him. It's then that he notices the small drop of blood in his neck. Having worked with the Batman for so long, he expects the current reaction from John to be from some kind of drug.

"Can you get out of here?" he asks. The biggest reaction John could give is shaking his head. The light is almost completely out. He tries to reach J'onn telepathically.

"J'onn. Can you pick up John?"

"Where is your location?" come the thoughts of J'onn.

"I don't know. I can't see a damn thing down here."

"I'll be there momentarily."

The light is completely gone as J'onn replies.

"Get down here n-"

Arthur is interrupted by the feel a stick against the back of his head. Annoyed, he looks around him to see the brief sight of Nightwing running behind him.

"Damnit Garth," Nightwing thinks, as he rushes along the tunnels away from the JLAers. "Anyone includes Aquaman."

Arthur begins to take chase then realizes he's left John alone. "J'onn, I need you down here - now!

"I am presently trying to contact Flash, Wonder Woman and Batman."

"Forget them J'onn, I need you down here to take care of John now. I can't go after this kid and-" Arthur pauses as he feels around the darkness for John. Frantically, he begins searching around the water.

"Don't worry Aquaman, he's safe."

"What is this about Nightwing?"

"I can't say. All I can do is promise you I'll do all I can to make this right."

After a short time of wandering, Arthur calls out, "You know full well that I'm not going to lie down like a dog for you."

"In all honesty; if half the stories Garth told me about you are true, I might actually enjoy this."

With that, a wing ding hits a nearby wall setting off one of the proximity grenades. Arthur falls back against the side wall of the tunnel. Another wing-ding flies and hits another grenade beside him throwing him farther down the tunnel.

Getting up from his hands and knees frustrated, he yells, Damnit boy! Fight me! Face to face like a man." He hears rusted metal turning down the shaft of the tunnel and sees a light pouring down into the sewer fifteen feet down the tunnel. He then sees Nightwing pull himself up through the doorway. Aquaman runs as fast as he can toward the light, but Nightwing pulls himself up into the utility tunnels too fast for Arthur to catch up. Before he closes the door, he drops two pellets. The pellets explode and gas comes streaming out of them filling the sewers quickly.

In the utility tunnel, Nightwing seals the trap door to the sewer as tightly as he can. He hears a banging on the other side of the door beneath him. It begins as a repetitive, constant banging. It slows tempo quickly. A dent comes up from below. Nightwing gets up to his feet and holds his quarter staff ready. A small crack reveals itself in the metal and the gas begins to seep into the tunnel. The gas becomes a fog lining the bottom three inches of the tunnel. Nightwing can hear the coughing of Aquaman as he punches up through the door. Aquaman bends the metal of the door out of the way and drags himself up into the tunnels coughing, desperately trying to get the gas out of his lungs.

Nightwing, distracted by Aquaman, failed to see J'onn phase through the ground behind him.

J'onn is arguably the most powerful being on earth. He's a shape shifter and telepath, with Superman's strength, speed and eye beams. He has no kryptonite. He doesn't breathe air through lungs, but through his skin, so gasses don't work on him. His skin is practically impenetrable as long as he's conscious, so most poisons and serums are ineffective. The closest thing he has to a flaw is that he has a bad reaction to fire… but who doesn't? But sometimes strengths can be the greatest weakness from its removal.

J'onn flew at light speed to grab the metal band surrounding Nightwing's head. The minute it left Nightwing's head a sweltering pain stabs into the minds of both Aquaman and J'onn. J'onn's costume begins to turn green and his features stretch to a points. Aquaman is in so much pain that he can't bring himself to cough up the rest of the gas in his lungs. That pain is a fraction of J'onn's pain. Every thought in a twelve mile radius is pouring through his mind at the same time burning his mind like fire.

The utility tunnels of Metropolis run all the lines under the streets. Everything from the phone lines, gas, electricity, cable lines run through these tunnels. They're sealed off with thick hardened steel and lined with lead to protect these lines from the damage that concurrently happens a few feet above them. There are lights streaming along the top are fed by a separate electric line than the main power lines running along the sides.

J'onn fell to his knees and leans back unable to take in a breath for another scream.

"I'm sorry J'onn."

After loosing concentration from the pain, Nightwing is able to shove his quarterstaff through J'onn and into the power lines that feed the city of Metropolis.

Another problem with J'onn is insulation. His costume is his skin, so he isn't able to wear rubber soles to insulate a pulse.

Thousands of volts of power are fed directly into the Martian as he falls from a pain he, nor anyone since, has never felt. The whole tunnel appears to be dulled. He starts to walk toward Aquaman. Nightwing kneels down beside him pulling out a cloth of some kind. Aquaman just lays there, unable to move.

"What have you do-"

He is interrupted by Nightwing placing the cloth over his mouth.

"My belt has a mental amplifier. It feeds all thoughts and emotions across the city into my head. I'm not a telepath, so I'm just a deaf man working at an airport. The mental inhibitor was actually to prevent the thoughts from coming out. J'onn's a telepath and you're an empath. I just needed you two in close proximity. This is just chloroform. I promise I will make this right… but…"

Aquaman was unconscious before he can finish. Nightwing doesn't know what else to say. He gets up and looks at the two comatose people lying beside him. He picks up the quarterstaff and unlocks it. It shrinks back to the size of Escrima stick and he places it into a holster in his thigh.

He presses a button on his left buckler. He then says, "Pick up these ones for now." He shakes his arms letting the blood flow through his arms. His bucklers are coated with lead and the weight is starting to take its toll.

Nightwing looks up to see an access shaft. He starts to climb to the street. He lifts up the access panel for the shaft.

He doesn't lift it up all the way. He wants to get his bearing. He looks around… There it is. The building.

The access is pulled from its hinges and Nightwing is thrown up from the shaft and down the street. Fortunately for him, he was able to roll with his direction and get into a defensive stance.

He looks back to see one of the most dangerous things he's ever seen. The sight is the icon that, to some, outshines the Superman. She floats a few feet above the street with her arms crossed. She is Wonder Woman, and she looks pissed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I want to say three things while I research the next chapter.

1.The next chapter will reveal who Nightwing is doing all this for (again, this isn't continuity).

2.I'd like to thank all who sent me a review and (again) any help, criticism and advise would be greatly appreciated.

3.All nay-sayers to this story…

-When the enemy is confused, you can use this opportunity to take them (Du Mu)

-Tire them by flight (Sun Tsu)

-Some win through speed, even if they are clumsy (Cao Cao)

-Overcome your opponent by calculation (Li Quan)

-Invincibility is a matter of self-defense; vulnerability is simply a matter of having gaps (Wang Xi) --The Art of War

Translated by Thomas Cleary


	4. Chapter 3

I would just like to say… I don't know much about Wonder Woman. I researched as much as I could and came up with this. Most of this is actually based on the limited knowledge I have of Amazons in Greek mythology, so it's possible I'm going to be way off base on this one. I apologize in advance.

After proof reading it, I get the impression that the description of the fight gets really complicated and technical. I'm using terms from books I read about fighting, but I don't know if that helps or hurts the story. Again, criticism, help and advice are highly appreciated.

-

"She's not Donna," he thinks. "She looks like her, acts like her… she might even fight like her. She's not Donna."

Diana is many things. She's the princess and ambassador of the soon to be acknowledged nation of Themyscira. She's the co-leader and field commander of the JLA. She's an Amazon warrior with gifts from gods and immortals. To Nightwing however, she's a remembrance of someone greater.

"She is so much like her," he thinks. They have the same will. They have the same strength. Nightwing has to keep reminding himself… "she's not her."

Fighting Superman was difficult in and of itself. Superman had a large claim to raising the circus acrobat that became a hero. He helped Nightwing greatly when he made the transition from Robin to Nightwing. In fact, his namesake was adopted from a legend that Superman admires. He knew that one of the main reasons Bruce and Clark got along together so well was partially because of the influence Dick had on Bruce to lighten up. Fighting him was more difficult than he'd ever considered. Nightwing literally had to convince himself that nothing can harm Superman to do what had to be done. Every hit from the Escrima stick and every trick he played, Nightwing replaced those thoughts and emotions he had for Clark with Superman. In turn, everything he did to Superman was not done by Dick Grayson, but by Nightwing.

This is so much harder for him. Diana and Wonder Woman are the same person. Donna and Troia were the same person. Where Donna was concerned, Dick and Nightwing were the same person. And he has to convince himself, "she's not Donna."

"This must end now Nightwing. I don't know what would possess you to do this, but-"

Nightwing pulls out two pills out of his left buckler and presents them to her.  
"What is that?"

"Essence of Seraphin. It'll make you sleep." Diana's reaction is obviously shock at this. "I don't want to fight you Diana. Everything that you are… I can't just…"

Donna isn't a fool. She knows full well that Nightwing and her soul sister were close. Diana sees an opportunity to end this through negotiation. "Nightwing, I'm sure we can talk about this. Tell me what this is about."

"No, Diana. You don't understand. Take the pills. Please. I can promise you I'll make this right."

In an instant, Diana was able to fly in and take the two pills and fly in the sky behind him. Nightwing turned around to see her floating above him. She waits to make sure he's watching. She turns her hand and lets the pills fall below her. "You can't win Dick."

Nightwing winces. He knew it was unlikely for her to take the pills, he just insistently wished her to. He slowly pulls the Escrima stick from his thigh and extends it to a quarterstaff. " 'So it is said that if you know others and know yourself you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you win one and loose one; if you-'"

"'-do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle'. Sun Tsu."

Nightwing cracked a smile. "You don't know me, Diana. I do, however, know you. You don't even know yourself as well as I do. Please, don't do this."

Wonder Woman vanishes for a half-second. In that half-second, Nightwing is able to swing the quarterstaff up to and across his mid section. The staff hits Wonder Woman across the temple. The impact surprises her not realizing the mystical properties of the staff. Nightwing supports the staff with his right arm and into her stomach pulling her above him. At the highest point of the arc, Diana adjusts her weight to flip over the staff hovering just above him. She then sees three wing-dings heading for her which she quickly blocks with her Bracelets of Victory. Nightwing dives out from under her and throws the staff toward her. She easily catches the staff as stands floating above the ground pausing. She uses the staff to attack Nightwing with a downward swing. Nightwing read the move five steps ahead and steps forward to redirect the staff movement and momentum downward. Her superior grip on the weapon isn't able to let go of the staff and follows the momentum toward the street. She hits the ground with a large thud.

-

Dick doesn't know Diana as well as he thinks he does, but he does understand Amazons. He studied them for years. Donna didn't know who she was or where she came from. Dick spent a lot of time being there for her, learning with her and helping her. They learned about Diana. She revolutionized the art of Amazonian fighting. Before, they'd learn to fight at distances with spears and bows and only utilizing swords and shields in rare close combat. Anything like daggers and maces were never used for anything but ritual. However, Wonder Woman's gifts from the gods granted her the ability to utilize the consistent attacking pattern of Amazonian fighting up close throwing other fighters off balance. She fought with her hands.

-

Nightwing twists the staff. It separates unevenly and Nightwing is left with a four foot stick. He Sung again with a downward thrust and was blocked by Wonder Woman's arm. She quickly extends her right leg outward kicking Nightwing in the stomach. Nightwing flew ten feet back along the street. He could feel the familiar sting and swell that comes with cracked ribs. If she didn't hold back that kick, his rib could have pushed back and punctured his lung. Standing up, he could see Wonder Woman in the familiar arms crossed hovering stance from earlier.

Nightwing began training for fighting when he was two. As a teenager, someone told him about an old character actor from the nineteen twenties named Buster Keaton. When Keaton was a child of five, his parents sewed a suitcase handle on his jacket, brought him on the vaudevillian stage and threw him back and forth twelve feet between them. Dick's first thought was at how easy Keaton had it. His father had him walking on his hands when he was four. He was flying through the air on the trapeze when he was five. Dick worked hard his whole life at flying. When Superman became public, Dick only wanted to fly higher than ever. When his parents fell, his world fell with them. He was adopted by the Batman. Batman focused that speed and agility for Dick to survive as a vigilante. He learned many fighting styles over the next few years. His agility made him excel at wado ryo, wing chun, tai kwan doand caporera. The Batman trained him to grapple and box. Dick learned to read other styles of fighting and to think and improvise. He's efficient in over thirty forms of weapon combat excelling in Escrima, shiruken throwing and tonfar and effective in twice as many. He knows that the best defense to the Amazonian fighting style is to deflection and entanglement of the constant attack pattern. Even after all this training and knowledge, Dick can't win this fight. It's not because he isn't skilled enough, but because she's Wonder Woman.

Nightwing gets up and begins to dust himself. He wants to cringe from the pain, but more than that, he wants her to see him stop himself from cringing. He knows that it will make her think it's an issue of pride. She'll then slow down and continue to hold back her punches. He rolls up his sleeves and removes his utility bucklers. They fall to the street heavily. He then holds his stick behind him and looks up at her. She begins to show a look of frustration. He runs at her and leaps as high as he can. In the air he twirls the stick and begins to slash downward. Diana easily blocks the stick and reverses it with another sidekick. Nightwing is lower than she anticipated and she missed him kicking around his left arm. Nightwing loosens his grip on the stick and lets it slide to his other hand trapping her leg at the knee between his shoulder (below) and the stick (above). When Nightwing lands on the pavement, he uses all his strength to pull her down to the street. With her now lying on the pavement face down, he steps over her and rotates the stick so it entangles her leg in a shinto garami. Aggravated, she flies off the ground and kicks Nightwing off of her. Nightwing pirouettes and lands on his feet, holds the stick in both hands and pushes it laterally across him catching Diana's advancing attempt at a tackle catching her right shoulder. He twists the stick counterclockwise deflecting her to his left. He then ducks as a knee passes over his head. Diana then throws a right hook. Nightwing is able to catch it with a ganseki otoshi garami. Halfway through, however, he reverses it into a gyaku ude. She twists under the move and (still floating) pushes him away from her. He rolls backward in the air ten feet before landing with both feet and one hand for balance, his left had still holding the stick.

-

Nightwing can't beat her. No matter how hard he strikes her, she'll only take the hit and move in to attack harder. A very strange style for a self-proclaimed pacifistic diplomat. She was granted the stamina of the gads, so chances are that he'd never be able to hit her hard enough to knock her out. Nightwing knows this situation too well. As a child, he was fighting the first Blockbuster by himself. He's squared off against Deathstroke. Having always been the underdog in every fight since the beginning of this livelihood, he's discovered that the best way to win is to keep the objective in sight. To beat Roland Desmond, have him concentrate on the Nightwing in front of him instead of the house's support beams he just smashed. In this case, he doesn't have to beat Wonder Woman yet, he just has to distract her.

-

"End this now Nightwing. I don't want to hurt you."

"Don't you think I would if that was an option?"

"Just tell me what this is about and I swear we will-"

A brief shadow passes above her distracting her thought. Then another. She looks behind her along the street to see hundreds of shadows flying swiftly. In the distance, she sees a huge swarm of little one person ships headed towards Metropolis. It takes her a moment to make out the faint yellow and black color scheme. There is a familiarity to the ships that she can't quite remember.

"What is this Di?"

She looks around to see Nightwing enter a building run down old building complex. Diana charges in after him.

-

Wonder Woman is arguably the most powerful being on the planet. She does, however, have flaws. The first of which are behavioral. Bruce taught him that she is very prideful when she fights. Perhaps it's a desire to make her people proud or she fights in the spirit of her mother Hippolyta. It could very well be in her blood as an Amazon, but the fact is undeniable. She will fight until she is unable to. She is also as stubborn in that sense. She will rarely ever ask for help, but she's recently been attempting to reform that habit. Psychologically is the most common assault on the princess, but she's also sound and strong. Then there's the other flaw. Whereas Superman is vulnerable to magic, Wonder Woman is bound to it. To deny magic is to deny her very being. Of coarse this is not exploited often for obvious reasons. How often do people have access to heaven and hell? How often can someone find Krono's eye or Poseidon's trident? For most, the answer is never. Nightwing on the other hand has seen heaven and hell. In fact, one of his friends owns Poseidon's Trident. Nightwing not only has access, he's well educated in the ways of magicfrom experience. She is bound to the rules of the gods... she was given gifts from Ares and Aphrodite and thus is bound.

-

Nightwing enters the doorway of the abandoned building. On a small table just inside the doorway is a bowl of golden apples and a small device. He hastily grabs one of them and turns around to see Diana coming toward him. He throws the apple as far into the street as he can. Diana stops, turns around chases after the apple. Nightwing takes the other two and runs further into the building. He reaches the stairway and starts to climb. Diana has picks up the apple. She looks back at Nightwing confused. She then reenters the building and follows the direction of Nightwing's heavy footsteps. She flies up the stairway seeing him on the third floor. As she reaches the second floor, a second apple falls down the well into an opening in the wooden base of the stairwell. Unable to resist, she flies back down the stairs and attempts to grab it. Reaching into the hole she feels a sting. She pulls out a bloodied hand. "What is this?"

Nightwing looks over the railing at an infuriated Wonder Woman. Smiling, he answers, "They're the Golden Apples of Hesparadese. Like Atalanta, you have to pick them from where they land. You are bound toAphrodite laws."

"Have you kept these records on the JLA like Batman?"

Nightwing's face quickly contracts to a look of seriousness. "No," he replies. "Donna told me. Just like she told me about the Essence of Seraphin, and how it can be used to coat a dagger." Diana quickly looks down at her hand. She gets a hold of the wooden panels on the ground and in one felt move pulls the floor boards up. Just inside the hole are five daggers laid in such a manner that they would cut anyone that reached inside. Furious, she flies up the stairway chasing after Nightwing. When she reaches the fourth floor, she sees Nightwing running towarda window. She's almost upon him when he throws the last of his apples far behind her. Unable to resist, she chases after the final apple. Nightwing presses a button on the device he recently grabbed and jumps out of the building. The first floor is the first to go. In less than a second every floor fills with an explosive impact. As Diana picks up the final apple, she is caught up in the fourth explosion. The entire building then begins to collapse. Instantly after being pushed up by the explosion, she's sent back down as the complex falls on her.

Nightwing, pushed out from the blast, flies down to half way into the intersection. He rolls as he lands hitting the ground causing more writhing pain to his broken rib, pulled shoulder and twisted ankle. A cloud of dust fills the streets surrounding him as he lies in the street, adrenaline wearing off and pain setting in. He looks up at the sky as a barrage of ships block out the sun. He sits up and looks toward the rubble. He set up the explosives so the building would implode on its own weight pulling in all twenty seven floors into the center and all the outer walls pulling in so fewer bystanders would be harmed. The pile of rubble stood about seven floors high. A large portion of it probably sank into the basement. He slowly stands as the dust begins to settle around him. There is a little movement in the huge pile. Nightwing shrugs it off as being the rubble settling. The little movement becomes bigger. Nightwing's eyes begin to widen as he sees a section of the rubble rise.

"Oh, come on!" he gasps. The pile in the center continues to rise. Then it begins to move laterally. He sees a figure stepping out of the rubble through the dust.

"You gotta be kidding me!" he screams. "I just hit you with a building. That should have at least slowed you down for a second."

"You know I don't give anyone that satisfaction" he heard the Amazon say as she stepped through the clearing. Her body was wracked with cuts and bruises all over her. She took a few slow limping steps down the rubble. "Your mettle has been tested, and… it… has been found… la…"

The Amazon keels over on the way down and rolls to the bottom. The potion works. Nightwing feels his whole body give rest as he makes sure the Amazon sleeps. He sees his utility bucklers in the street and slowly goes over to them. As he bends down to pick them up, a pair of red clad legs appears in front of him.

"We have to move fast Nightwing. I just saw an entire squadron of… Hey what happened here?" He looks up to see Flash standing before him with Batman over his right shoulder.

"Where the hell were you?" Nightwing asks as he puts on the two bucklers on his forearms.

"You wouldn't believe this, but the moment I picked up Batman he amazingly put me in this weird sleeve-choke from an improvised butterfly guard. I knew that I just had to keep running and with Wonder Woman chasing us, I didn't know at all what to do. But that's not what's important right now. I just saw fifty seven H.I.V.E. airships headed straight for this location and will be here any second. Yeah, I know. H.I.V.E.? That really weird organization that uses foot soldiers as cannon fodder? Well anyway, we have to get the others out of here before…"

Nightwing touches Flash's shoulder and the Flash feels a sharp pinch pierce through his costume.

"I'm sorry Flash." The Flash looks back at Dick who has a look of sorrow in his face. "What was that? What did you… whoa?" The Flash begins to see the world spin in front of him as he feels the drugs kick in. He looks directly at Nightwing's face trying to find the right words. "I'm sorry Flash, I'm so sorry."

"Why?"

Nightwing begins to feel the tears build up under his mask. "You don't understand. They have her."

A look of confusion sweeps across the Flash. He trusts Nightwing more than Superman. They literally went to hell for each other. Flash tries to get out a final question before fading out of consciousness. "Who?"

"Flash, they have my daughter."

-

Again, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to end it there. I'm still doing "past" research for the next chapter. This last one was a killer for me and I still don't think it works well.

I'd like to thank the Eternal Paladin, Midnight Raven, RobinofYJ, Esther-Channah and arsenal13 for sending me some great reviews and I hope this last chapter doesn't shatter your expectations.

I'd just like to emphasize that this is fan fiction and that I would never let a story like this happen in continuity. I'm just having fun. Thank you for your patience.


	5. Chapter 4

Hey… sorry it took so long for this one, the season was hectic.

On a personal note, I'd like to curse the writers of the Titan books. Research was a pain and I still don't know if it's right or not. If anyone notes an inconsistency, you can reach me at Again, corrections will take time.

To The Laughing Man… I know. I tried to find a book on rope fighting and came up short. If I make revisions, I'll definitely try to fit that one in.

On to the story.

* * *

Post battle fields are curious. Action is now still. The surrounding damage is estimated in fear. The ones who can move do slowly and without the direction they had before. This battle ended abruptly with betrayal. He sits on his throne of rubble looking at the fallen. There's a tight perimeter kept by Metro P.D.. They're only keeping the innocents away. It's possible a special task force will be deployed, but the signal would have to have been broad cast. After the JLA showed up, H.I.V.E. activated a disruption field around Metropolis. TV signals, phone lines, radio waves; they're all being blocked. The JSA don't know there's a problem. The news reporters can't report the news because they either can't get the broadcast signal out or they just haven't heard about it yet. Even the police can't call dispatch until the field is shut down.

Any minute now, H.I.V.E. troopers will begin to gather up the fallen. Each of them has specially designed containment devices. Nightwing told them that he wasn't responsible for containment, but they said their scientist could easily figure that our on their own. They were very well prepared for this coup.

For now, Nightwing sits on the rubble looking at the fallen. In the fight he forced himself to be Nightwing instead of Dick Grayson. Now that he is too tired and in too much pain for any such effort, Dick Grayson must now look at his handiwork. He sees his friend's sister lying face down. He sees his best friend lying on the street. He sees his father.

A loud moan fills the city as the first of the ships begins to descend. The wind picks up and the dust flies. The circular ships are wide enough to fill the two way street. Its yellow and black thick metallic plating contrasts with the gray buildings, and the bright blue sky. Along the sides are four wings; two pointing up and two pointing down. The front panel shows thick black glass preventing any visibility into the ship. The back of each ship striped with black and yellow bars stopping and a flat black doorway into the ship. The people scramble and run out of the way. Some of the citizens recognize the ships from a long time ago, while others are just frightened because of the fact aircraft are flying in the city. Seven ships descend upon the streets of Metropolis. Many more stay high in the air circling the city.

One ship descends in front of Nightwing facing away. Nightwing's black hair flies wildly in the wind. The doors in the back of the ships begin to open before the ships land. Out of the ships come units of faceless troops. Each individual dresses in the same yellow and black thick armored uniform. Each member has in their possession a single handed laser-like weapon on their holster and a double handed rifle strapped along their backs. Their helmets have a thick black tinted Plexiglas shield in front of the faces. No individual can be identified for their rank or ability. Yet each member does a specific job. A few soldiers from each craft descend into the sewer systems and utility tunnels. Each soldier descends equidistant from the next. A couple of solders exit the ships with casket-like boxes and move closer to the fallen heroes.

A surrounding police officer witnesses the scene and jumps into action. The young officer runs pulls his police issue Smith and Luthor sidearm and points it at the nearest H.I.V.E. member. The closest soldier to the officer pulls his sidearm. As he points it at the police officer a two foot Escrima stick hit's the officer across the temple. The officer falls to the ground. The soldier turns to face an approaching Nightwing his eyes displaying frustration and anger. He stops in front of the soldier.

They look at each other for three seconds before the soldier, expressionless, turns first to continue his work on his "coffin". Nightwing looks over at the fallen officer. He walks over to him and bends down to check on him. He looks disorientated and is having trouble focusing. The officer looks up toward Nightwing.

"Relax. They won't harm anyone if you promise to keep your distance." The officer looks around wide-eyed. "I hit you at the temporal lobe and caused the blood vessels to swell. You'll be okay in a couple of hours and have a headache in the morning." Standing up, he sees another pair of police officers approaching. He puts up his hands calling out. "Wait. If you attack, they'll open fire and cause civilian casualties."

"Are we supposed to believe you?" they ask.

"It's common sense."

"Are we just supposed to let them just take away--"

"You can't stop them now. When they leave you can call for the JSA or the Titans. For now, you'll only get innocents hurt if you attack."

The police officers look at each other and pull out their side arms. "You know this has happened before. Concentrate on making sure everyone is safe first." The H.I.V.E troopers behind him keep their eyes on the officers. They put their guns back in their holsters. The

Nightwing turns around to see the unconscious body of John Stewart brought up from the depths of the sewers. He is grabbed by two soldiers and is laid in the coffin. Three soldiers come up from the depth of the sewers. One approaches Nightwing and says, "His ring is missing."

Nightwing's eyes widen. "Then go back down there and look for it. You don't want to leave the most powerful weapon in the universe floating down the sewers."

They all look at each other. Two soldiers descend back into the sewers. Another two pick up the closed casket with John Stewart in it and go back to the ship. The final turns toward Nightwing. "Where are your arm utility kits?"

Nightwing rolls up his sleeves. The solder then says, "Open them."

One by one, Nightwing opens each one revealing small gadgetry or empty slots. Below the street, a bellowing explosion is heard. Nightwing and the soldier look down. Nightwing looks back at the other soldier. "Sorry, I forgot about those bombs I left down there."

One soldier climbs out of the sewers dragging another unconscious H.I.V.E. member. The soldier talking to Nightwing and the conscious one that came up from the sewer look at each other and pause. The one closest to Nightwing looks toward the clad hero. "What do you suggest?"

"Well, you're on a time limit here. Unless you want to further chance more vigilantes showing up, I suggest you bring him now and came back later. Look through the sewer filtration system and work your way back."

The one on the crouching over his comrade responds, "Without his ring, he's useless. We should kill him."

Nightwing darts back at that comment, "You don't know that. And that's not a choice you can take back."

The soldiers look back at each other. Three seconds pass. The other one looks back at Nightwing, "You know he'll kill her if you're lying to us?" Nightwing's eyes glare violently at the soldier that is talking to him. "Very well. Come with us."

Nightwing looks back at the surrounding crowd. He then walks toward the nearest ship.

There is no greater vision of evil and innocence than a witness to this sight.

The deranged figure supports a baby in his right arm. He sits in a throne like chair of claws and bones. His head holds a weight of a dead animal's skull. His arms clad in red and blue with a white cloak covering his torso. His pure white skin and deep red eyes are in deep contrast to the child. A creaking, malicious voice voices his thoughts with; "Who are you? Are you my sister? Cousin? Niece? Daughter?"

He strokes her long ebony hair with his left hand as if he were combing it. "My sister's not my wife yet. But my father's daughter is your mother's sister. What does that make you?" he smiles. He looks into those deep green eyes of the baby seeing light emanate from them. He wonders briefly what that light might taste like.

"Do you know my father? He's very far away right now, but he'll be here soon. My mother promised me he'd come. She wouldn't lie to me. I'll kill her if she did."

He gets up with the baby in hand and walks across the room to a stone alter accented with bones of a very large creature. The room is filled inexplicable blood covered ridges and bumps. There are green lights emanating from nearby three foot stone pedestals with archaic symbols on them. He lay the baby on the stone alter sitting up. He looks directly at the child.

"I met my father face to face recently. I'd always known him, but to actually see him… well… I'll make sure you see him someday too. It's the only way you can really know him." The baby's attention is distracted by a hanging bone to her left. She reaches out to grab it, but the teenager grabs her hand and tries to get her attention.

"When I met him, I asked him how I can free him. If I free him, I can be with my wife. He said he'd answer me if I gave him my soul. I didn't have one, but mother did. All my mothers did."

The disturbed boy grabbed the bone that got the girl's attention and waved it in front of her. "He told me about you. He told me that you were asleep somewhere. He said he was a part of your mommy a long time ago. Your mommy and daddy almost got married, but my daddy stopped them. He changed your mommy. She had to run off by herself. She needed her 'people' to help her. They cleansed her and she ended up forgetting a lot of what happened during that time. "

The contrast in orange and white skins is illuminated by the surrounding green flames on the alter. "It's a shame. She probably didn't even know you existed in the world. Her people never told her for fear of a royal conspiracy on her planet. You were put to rest and sent away."

He stands straight up and holds the baby's arms up high. He laughs and lets go of her hands watching her tip back laying down on the altar. "I failed the last time I tried to bring my father here. He told me I needed the most powerful beings in the world to be my family. If they can protect me, I can do whatever I want. Only then can I hold the world in my hand. With my last mother's soul, I asked my father how to get them. He tricked me. He told me to pay someone." The boy laughs at the last sentence. He wraps his arms on either side of the child, bringing his face closer her face, his enlarged incisors glistening in the light.

"Well, I looked for the best. I had a country full of money and could pay the best. I could pay an army. I found one. A whole army of people giving all of themselves to one leader. I took control of that army. But, they've tried to take on the League before and failed worse than my other mothers. Then I found this man named Slade. He could beat the league, but I didn't have enough on him to attempt to take on the League. Then I saw a particular flaw in his record. Your daddy beat him many times. Whereas Slade was able to best entire teams of heroes, your daddy has always found some way to strive to win. And there was something on him that I might have been able to get…" He extends index finger with its two inch long nail. He taps the baby's nose and says, "…you."

He trails his finger down the chin of the baby. It brushes across her neck and stops at her belly. "Getting you was difficult, but very possible. Maybe not for me, but your mother…"

"BLOOD!"

The boy looks toward a black vine covered open archway. The darkness beyond it is a path continues on until it is completely consumed by darkness. The voice of Nightwing echoes through the chamber. The boy picks up the child and holds her in his arms. He cradles her with his right arm and stands up straight. He steps in front of the alter toward the archway. He places his left hand on her chest, the nails brushing the underside of her chin.

In the darkness of the hallway, figures move around quickly. All the figures stop momentarily. Then, for a moment, there is quick movement followed by the distant sound of footsteps echoing across a floor.

"BLOOD!"

A blue shade begins to walk into the green light. The boy in the chamber waves his hands and the lights in the chamber grow dimmer. The darkness in the hallway becomes more visible. Along the floor is a thick stone bridge shaped like bones over a pool of bones, the collapsed bodies of three H.I.V.E. troopers.

"BLOOD!"

Nightwing steps into the green lit room with two H.I.V.E. troopers behind him, guns in hand. Nightwing sees Brother Blood, the fourteenth heir to the Church of Blood. He sees Blood's hand is placed on his daughter close to her neck.

"I did what you asked Blood. Now give her to me." Brother Blood just looked back at Nightwing as if he was nothing. "I said give me my daughter."

"Are you ordering me? ME?"

Nightwing, in frustration steps forward. Baron Blood widens his eyes and black vines along the archway push out rapidly extend to reach him. They grab his ankle first, the thorns digging into the skin causing blood. Nightwing reaches for the vine, but another one grabs his arm. And another. Nightwing is tangled in a web of vines reaching out for him.

"I tell you what to do. No one tells me what to do. You're mine. Your daughter is mine."

Nightwing looks back at the self proclaimed imperial monarch and his daughter is still out of his reach. "Let g--"

A vine covers his face over one of his eyes and down his neck and another across his mouth. Nightwing can only see the baron with his left eye and hear his whining spoiled voice.

"You're disobedient and need to be hurt." With his left hand, Blood dug his finger into the child's arm causing the slightest hint of blood. Nightwing used all his might to get up on his two feet. The vines begin to dig deeper into his appendages. He can feel the blood drip down and be soaked by his costume and feels his left arm begin to go numb. Baron Blood smiles at his pain. Nightwing continues to push forward. The vine across his face begins to tear at his mask. He struggles to loosen the vines a little. With that little give he creates, he takes another step forward. The vines get tighter and cause more blood. Blood's smile slowly begins to fade. He looks at Nightwing's lens. Beyond that, he feels like he can see Nightwing's eye. He sees his face.

Through the vines and blood, Blood sees something he can't understand… whether it's some kind of strength or determination the effect is the same on Blood. Blood is afraid.

Blood looks up at the two troopers at the doorway. They look at each other for a second. They pull out their side arms and point them at Nightwing. Their blasts expand and engulf him in electricity. The pain is intense. Dick only bites deeper into the vine and pushes forward another step. The pain causes an increase in adrenalin and pushes the pain back despite the blood dripping from his ear. He still takes another step. Blood takes a step back into the alter. The blasts loosen the vines. He falls to his knees from the pain, but moves a whole two feet closer. He reaches out with his arm and grabs the Last Supper Cloak. One of the troopers reaches around his back and grabs his rifle.

"NO! Don't kill him. I want to break my toys first."

The soldier turns the gun around and uses the butt to strike across the head of Nightwing. And again. And again.

Then Nightwing lay there and Blood is furious. He kicks away Nightwing's gripping hand. Blood puts the baby on the alter, her wail filling the chamber. "Shut up! I SAID SHUT UP!"

"What should we do sir?"

"Cut the vines and bound him up tight."

"Then what?"

Blood marches violently around the alter. He looks around for an answer. He takes a deep breath. Five seconds later a thought crosses his mind.

"Why did Judas kill himself? He was ashamed show his face to the other apostles."

A smile breaks across his face. "Make sure his mouth is bound tight. I don't want him to be able to say a word. Hang him upside down in the cells.

The soldiers hesitate. One of them speaks up, "You want us to put him with the other hero's? Isn't that a little--

"NO! You will do as I say. Do as I SAY! Judas will be displayed to the saints like a butchered pig."

* * *

I'm sorry I missed you VeltaIO, I thought I included you the last time.

Well, I'm trying this... if it works, thank you everyone. I also changed the batons to Escrima sticks. Thank you for reminding me and thank you Mr.Mrs.? Patterson. I'll try tofind more time online to make the proper corrections to the grammar.


	6. Chapter 5

Sorry for the delay in this chapter it was really difficult to write Again... any critisism and suggestion are appreciated. Especially if anyone doesn't like what I say about H.I.V.E. or Superman.

-

part 6 of 9

It's believed that if one is pursuing the profession of cannon fodder, all that has to be done is join the Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination. Essentially they're a bunch of terrorists who dress up like bees and call themselves H.I.V.E.. They have an abundance of resources for tactical espionage and warfare. There are no ranks in their army. There are no promotions from within. The soldiers give up their individuality and selfish exploits such as life itself to a particular monarch or general. It's believed that they are getting paid or that there's a country somewhere that these soldiers come from giving themselves up to blind nationalism. The truth is much sadder. They're people who gave up.

Countries across the continents are filled with injustices and victims' cries. This organization is a byproduct of those cries. After genocidal atrocities through this century, millions of people are left imploring for justice. Pol Pot and his totalitarian regime in Cambodia left thousands of people knee deep in plagued corpses and living desperation. Idi Amin Oumee united Uganda at the price of the Acholi and the Lango tribes. Nicolae Ceausescu led his communist country of Romania to overpopulation, starvation and disease from 1965 until his execution in 1989. Rwanda, Iran, South Africa, Pakistan, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Congo, Columbia, Panama, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Libya, Quaraq… the list goes on. Thousands of voices, millions of souls have and are left in shackles of oppression and plight.

There are people all over the world who would do anything to rid themselves of their pain. They would give up their identity and free will to end it. The Hive Master formed his army from the plight of nations. After his demise, the H.I.V.E. relinquished their loyalties to Madeline Kane and her successor Damien Dahrk. Each soldier gives up their identity and will for the sole purpose of serving. Their lives are forfeit and their emotions and souls are dead. With leadership freely given, they relinquish their moral precautions and do as they're commanded. Their hatred for their wrongs is replaced with a gun, a uniform and an order.

Now they are ordered to drag the seemingly unconscious body of Nightwing bound tightly in thorn covered vines by his legs to the cells with the League members he betrayed. The other soldiers that cross in the hallway never glance at the body. Their orders are given and their attention is unwavering.

A thin trail of blood follows the limp body of the fallen hero. His entire body is wrapped similar to a mummy but with his arms at his sides. There are three quarter inch thick vines surrounding his neck and piercing his skin and diminishing the blood flow to his head. Two more cover his mouth leaving it unable to close. The vine that covered his eye has been removed leaving a series of small cuts streaming across his face and a crack in one of the lenses of his mask. Both of his eyes are opened wide, but the lenses in his mask prevent the soldiers from knowing that fact. From his vantage point, he can tell how to get where he was, but more importantly, he sees Brother Blood. In the bottom left corner of his left lens, he sees a small vid- screen.

Without Blood's knowledge, Nightwing left a small lipstick camera in Blood's chambers. The goal was to get more information than he already knows, but the results end up with him being forced to see his own daughter being held in the hands of the monochromatic megalomaniac. He sits in his throne drinking a sifter of blood looking at a flickering flame coming up from his bleached alter. Nightwing is unable to make out anything that can be seen in the flame, but suspects that it's a kind of vision of either Nightwing himself being dragged to the other captives or of the league members themselves. Regardless, Nightwing can see a look of anger or annoyance in the face of Blood. The look on his face while holding his daughter fills Nightwing with a fear he's never known before.

Nightwing then feels the vines get tighter as he's dragged along the ground. Every bump from the rigid stone floor digs the thorns along his back deeper into his costume and into his skin.

The soldiers stop outside a door. The metallic mechanizations of the door are in contrast to the hellish surroundings. Nightwing thinks to himself of the possibility that Brother Blood is using magic acquired from hell thus changing the appearance of the instillation. There is a hissing sound that echoes in the hallway as the door slides aside and reveals a barrage of heavily armed troopers. Twenty soldiers lie on the floor, twenty one are on their knees between the laying troopers, and twenty are standing between those soldiers. All soldiers are holding high voltage laser rifles pointing toward a thick, steel doorway. Each soldier is also equipped with a conventional G11 rifle across their backs. On either side of the soldiers are two automatic chain mag high powered rifles with, most likely, armor piercing rounds.

None of the soldiers turn to acknowledge the door beside them opening up. The two soldiers dragging Nightwing continue to push forward into the room and stop in front of the thick doorway. After a mere thirty seconds, another hissing sound is heard and the thick door slides open revealing a long hallway with a red lit room in the distance. The soldiers continue to drag him toward the light. Nightwing can hear in the distance the voices of the league members.

"Stop doing that, you're only making it worse."

"I've… almost… got it."

"If it digs in any deeper, you're going to cut an artery. Even if you get out, you can't get out of the cells in your current state."

"What about you Diana? Diana?"

"The roots aren't moving at all."

"It's got to be magic. If I could get my hand free… how's Batman?"

"Still unconscious. Whatever Nightwing did, he either made sure Batman wouldn't wake up or he's a part of it."

"Diana… that's enough…"

"She has a point. How many times do we have to be played with by the damnable Bat-clan before enough's enough."

"Do not agree with me without understanding my meaning. I am merely suggesting that his duplicitous nature makes it difficult to predict his motives."

"Wait… I think someone's coming."

At that point, the HIVE members dragging Nightwing finally reach the small prison. It's a circular prison with seven cells pointed toward the center. Each cell is specifically designed to hold the members of the Justice League. All the cells have black stalagmites popping up from the ground Next to the entrance of the jail is John Stewart's cell. His arms are shackled behind his back against the far back of his cell. To the left of the entrance to the jail is Aquaman in a similar cell. The way he is sitting, Nightwing suspects that his arms are linked at the elbows behind him. Dick also sees some light green metal appearing around Aquaman's neck which he suspects to be some kind of processed veridium. A bright, white light above Arthur is baking his tough skin, dehydrating him. Just outside his cell is a six inch round cylinder of water sealed in a thick plastic-like material. Nightwing assumes that Arthur's hand is being kept in the container, just out of his reach.

To the right of John Stewart is Batman. He's being held in a kneeling position in an iron maiden like torture device made of veridium that comes up to his neck. His cape is draped over the back of the device. His arms are out in front of him in a rack contraption that has little loops above each hand with the base of his fingers being held back essentially keeping his hands from clenching to grip any device to free himself. His white slits are open and show white pupils, but his inactivity and expressionless lead to the impression he's unconscious. To the left of Aquaman is Wonder Woman. She's being held in a similar kind of vine that surrounds Nightwing, but hers is thicker and is still root to the ground. Below her is some kind of a pentagram with arcane writing around it.

Beside her is Flash. He's encased in a clear, spherical dome that has some kind of metallic contraption below him. The Flash is standing in an unusually stiff position leading Nightwing to the assumption that the device is prohibiting any movement from him. To Batman's right is a cell with a two foot veridium cube placed atop a similar pentagram with archaic symbols as Wonder Woman. There is also a keypad with a series of numbers and symbols.

In the center cell is Superman. Artificial red sunlight is being poured down on him. He's being held up a foot off the ground with his arms extended outward tangled steel barbed wire. The more he struggles the tighter the wire gets. As his powers are sapped from him, the wire begins to dig into him. He can feel his legs beginning to go numb from the blood loss, but he still shows a face of dissent. His face appears to have been abused by a very powerful being.

The center of the room descends inward to a large Celtic like design on the floor. Above it is a shallow ceiling with a two inch steel hoop protruding down. To the right of center is a small pulley system and a thick, rusted chain.

"Well, the prodigal turn coat returns."

"Arthur… not now."

The two soldiers wrap his legs in a chain, thread it through the hoop and hook the other end to a pulley system. They then lift him upside-down off the ground two feet before proceeding back to the entranceway. They turn around and stand watch over the prisoners. Nightwing's body begins to twist as the chain sets. When the swinging stops, he's forced to look directly into Superman's cell. More clearly, he can see the physical abuse Clark received.

"Hey kid, if you got a way to get us out of the mess you got us in, we're all ears."

"He… he can't talk… His mouth's gagged."

Clark's having a hard time looking up. Nightwing thinks that it's because of his own betrayal of the team, but it's actually because a strand of barbed wire is sticking into the back of his neck. Superman, more than anyone else in this world, has unwavering faith.

-

He has more faith in Nightwing than he does in Batman. Batman and Superman have always respected one another for their abilities. Batman respected Superman's eternal optimism and idealism while Superman respected Batman's selflessness and constitution. When he first saw a ten year old kid with all these characteristics helping Batman… he wanted to end it right away. He didn't understand why Batman would endanger a ten-year-old's life like that. Batman wanted things done his way, and Clark was forced to respect that. Over time, Clark noticed a change in Batman. His passion for crime-fighting became less of an obsession and more a desire for justice. He was less reticent when working with others and joined the Justice League. He started wearing a blue costume.

When Clark worked with the dynamic duo, he saw other more familiar aspects. He saw Hal's fearlessness and confidence. He saw Ollie's stubbornness and insight. He saw Barry's reasoning and leadership. In such a youth, it was inspirational to see. He accepted the idea of Kid Flash and Wonder Girl as the legacy of the heroes. More importantly, Clark was no longer apprehensive of the future. He had faith in it.

-

Whatever reasons Nightwing had for doing what he did, Dick Grayson has Superman's resolute faith and support.

"Is there any way him being brought here can help us?" Arthur asks.

John huffs a wicked grunt commenting "I'm getting satisfaction from it."

Wonder Woman shoots a glance at John silencing him quickly. She sees the bloody body of Nightwing dangling like a stripped fish. Even as a betrayer, he doesn't deserve to be displayed beaten like this. Despite these rationales she holds dear, she can't help but feel a slight hint of providence in his anguish. She pushes those feelings back and tries to reason with him. She's always underestimated Batman, so she now tries to overvalue the youth.

"Nightwing, I think that you're choosing not to escape because you blame yourself for our situation. Do not pity yourself. Realize the situation you're in and actively make things right. Get us out of here and all will be made right." She waits for his response only to receive no reaction at all. All Nightwing can sense is the small video feed in front of him. He tries to distance himself from his emotions for a second. He tries to see the elements. Brother Blood. His daughter. Blood's watching the prison now. Why? What's missing?

"Wow. That really inspired him. He's feeling sorry for himself with more intensity now. You really stimulated him princess."

Superman tries to raise his head looking toward Green Lantern. "John? What's gotten into you?"

"We should be finding a way out of here. Instead, we're relying on the principles of the guy who stabbed us in the back."

Wonder Woman interjects, "He hasn't betrayed us." Nightwing notices her voice is curiously louder and more emotional than usual.

"He used information on us to capture us. We're in here because of him. What do you call working for the bad guys? If he's stupid enough to get us in this mess, I doubt he's smart enough to get us out."

In his eye piece, Nightwing notices Blood's attitude change. As the animosities between the leaguers intensify, Brother Blood becomes more relaxed. Nightwing also notices a slight increase in the pitch of the voices around him. Inside the prison, Superman is dumbfounded by John. GL may not know Nightwing very well, but his reaction to the situation is more prideful and sarcastic than usual.

"John… focus."

Arthur exacerbates the situation with, "This coming from a third rate Lantern who can't take on a Teen Titan by himself."

"You're one to talk you self-centered overgrown fish."

Shaking her head, Wonder Woman intervenes again asking, "What's gotten into you two?"

"Stop this… now."

Wonder Woman then looks toward Clark's cell, retorting "You do not have to repeat me you know. You do realize that I can make decisions for this team myself."

"I didn't mean… that you couldn't."

"Then do not say anything. You are in no position to advise this team now."

"What is that supposed to mean? He's only leader when he's got his powers? The most powerful member leads?"

"Of coarse I didn't mean that…"

Nightwing notices their facial features beginning to stretch. Their skins begin to lighten. Blood vessels become thicker in their eyes. On the ground below him, the insignia darkens and deepens into the stone. Immediately, Nightwing recognizes the changing. It's a Trigon manipulation the Titans experienced. After the manipulation was complete, only Raven's sacrifice could bring them back. Batman turns his head to look directly into the other cells. He too notices the transformation.

"That means if Hal, Kyle, Alan, Kilowog or Guy are on vacation, you can lead."

"Don't go there fish man."

"And without your ring, you're right after Blue Beetle."

Batman turns his head to face Nightwing. Nightwing returns the glance to see him asking for some signal. Nightwing looks in the vid-screen to see Brother Blood, sitting with a broad smile across his face. His sifter of blood is almost dry... If he can hold out a few more seconds, Blood might turn his attention away. Only a minute is needed. Nightwing looks back at Batman and shakes his head.

"If neither of you two can control your emotions, neither of you should be on this team."

"Clench your jaw you self-obsessed bitch," Arthur responds.

"Diana… you're not… helping things."

"You're defending _them _now? Childishness aside, I wish they would take this matter seriously. We need less dissent."

"We need… a plan… chiding someone… without a plan… is pointless."

Where is the magic vision coming from? The symbol on the ground must be used to transform the league… the one in the cells under J'onn and Dinah are keeping them still magically… The guards? Why are they here? If Brother Blood has constant surveillance in the cells, then why are they here watching… He's seeing through them. Nightwing looks toward Batman and glances his eyes toward the guards.

Batman begins to vibrate rapidly in his restraints. He moves faster and faster until his form begins to blur. In his "blurred" state he stands up through the veridium shackles and walks out of his cell. The second he is outside, a black and gray line streaks around the cell block for a split second. After the second, the two guards are unconscious with their armaments and uniforms removed. Arthur's hand is released from its containment and left in the cell with Wonder Woman. The Flash's containment device is severely damaged and the Flash is released from his stasis field. Nightwing is free of the vines on the ground letting the blood flow out of the rest of his body. Standing over him is Batman with his arms on his hips looking down at Nightwing.

"What's a sleeve choke from an improvised butterfly guard?"

...To be continued

-

For those who don't get the obvious, it's Flash... I know Batman can't vibrate through viridium. If you comment, please don't mention that. I don't like the dialogue either so I'll probably change it so it makes more sense.

I'm also addidn another chapter as Brother Blood is anticlimatic after taking down the Justice League of America. I'll try to make it good.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Check the guards for any archaic writing on them." Nightwing commands to his colleague. "If you can't find anything, destroy their armor. Blood has cast some kind of a visual field spell, and I think it's coming from the point of view of the guards."

A black and gray haze surrounds the two guards as guards are stripped of their uniforms.

"What is going on here?" Wonder Woman screams. "Wally explain"

The Batman clad Flash pauses momentarily to interject, "Not now Diana. Arthur; break the containment spell in her cell."

Nightwing turns over onto his hands and knees. "Superman, can you hear me?"

Superman raises his head to the youth. "How fast can you get me down from here?"

"You've lost a lot of blood. Arthur will carry you. Who caused the bruises on your face?"

Superman shakes his head, "I only remember waking up in the cell."

Arthur sits in his cell with his eyes closed. His hand traces around the symbol painted on the ground of the cell. In Flash's cell, Batman slowly gets to his feet in a wobbling disorientation. "Where'd you put John's ring?" Batman asks as he moves to Arthur's cell to free him. Nightwing reaches far into his mouth to his back molar. Around it is a thin twine that falls down his throat. He gags as he pulls on the string feeling a small lump come up from his stomach.

" I really wish I didn't see that." John says as he sees the familiar green ring immerge from his mouth.

When Arthur's hand finishes breaking the containment spell, Wonder Woman breaks through the roots like they were made of paper. Just as quickly, she smashes through the rock stalactites and then continues to break the rest of them. She then helps Superman down from his torturous position. Batman finishes freeing Arthur and walks to John to try to take apart his shackles. He doesn't even look at Nightwing to give him a thought or impression. He just does what has to be done.

Arthur's hand reconnects with his shackled wrist behind him and he walks toward J'onn's cell. Nightwing raises his hands and stops Arthur.

"Leave him there. You concentrate on getting Superman out of here into the yellow sunlight."

"Are you out of your mind? Do you expect us to-"

"Bruce can get Superman out of here quickly, but he can't do it carrying a 500 pound Kryptonian. I need you to follow Bruce out of here with Clark."

"That's why we need J'onn"

"Something just kicked the hell out of Superman and it's powered by the fires of hell. J'onn can't be near fire and we're dealing with Hellfire here. J'onn's safe in there and I need Clark healthy now."

Wonder Woman interrupts, "Why don't I"

"Not now!" Nightwing looks into the view screen. He sees in his view screen that Brother Blood is in a fit of rage. Holding the little girl in his hand, he drops her on the throne as if she were a distracting thought. Nightwing jumps back a little at the sight. Brother Blood walks to the white altar pounding his arms hard in front of the flame. He is temporarily blinded and distracted. Nightwing gets to his feet heavily hands the emerald ring to John.

"How much time do you have on your ring John?"

"I should be good."

"Wonder Woman and John, I need you two to distract Blood long enough for Flash and me to grab my daughter."

A look of surprise fills the leaguers faces. Diana is the first to respond with "Daughter?"

"I'll explain later. Face the H.I.V.E. troops head on, but don't wipe them out, I need as much of a distraction as I can get. Keep them fighting until Flash comes back. Then lay them all out. Flash, we need to go NOW!"

Arthur looks back at "Why should we listen to you? If we get J'onn out of his cell"

Nightwing glares back at Aquaman and yells, "If you don't do what I say right now, I'm going to do to you what you wish you could do to Black Manta."

With this, Nightwing can see the look of anger and resentment. He hates using that, but Nightwing needs to save his daughter and he knows he doesn't have enough time to debate why he should be allowed to usurp leadership of the JLA temporarily.

While all the league members are arguing, Batman's in the background trying to help Clark up, "Arthur. Do as he says."

"We're not just going to leave J'onn here."

"Come back and free him after you get Clark out of here. J'onn can't be allowed to come anywhere near the fight when we're dealing with the fires of Hell. If you can get him out in time, make him relieve Diana. Wonder Woman and John… go now."

With that, Diana and John fly toward the distant opening for the dungeon. Green Lantern puts up a green wall and pushes through the steel door. WWII opens up when the soldiers begin to unload their guns on the heroes. Green Lantern stops the artillery with a green wall that catches the majority of the shots. Wonder Woman flies around to the artillery bunkers and disables the mag rifles. John looks to his right and sees a huge, thick metal door. In a second the door is a giant, metallic placemat.

Flash grabs Nightwing and they race around the battle ahead of them. He dodges the rain of bullets around them toward the doorway. Green Lantern expands his shield into the doorway to help them get to the hallway.

They get there in an instant and race to Nightwing's daughter. Nightwing pushes the pain surrounding his body into the back of his mind.

"Where did your message come from?" Wally asks.

"Vic designed a device for Jesse when she was with the Titans. It's supposed to send a message through the Speed Force to a receiver. It can only be used when a speedster's in speed mode and Jesse left before we could get a chance to test it."

"How'd I get the receiver?"

Nightwing looks at Flash and responds "You should watch your stuff more closely."

Flash slightly chuckles causing Dick to crack a smile. "Turn left here."

Behind them, Wonder Woman and John are fighting off a battalion of guards. Diana deflects all the bullets upward to the ceiling. As she flies low, she catches the legs of the guards and throws them toward the heart of the opposition. The H.I.V.E. troopers fire their guns whether teammates are in the way or not. John is having a hard time protecting catching bullets with all the maniacal and chaotic firing. Very rarely does the Amazonian princess see such contempt for human life. In each scenario, she is disgusted by it. In frustration, Wonder Woman attempts to end the battle quickly. With a speed reaching the Flash's, Diana attempts to break the nozzles of all the guns in the room.

A green loop surrounds Wonder Woman's waist with a thin line of emerald light leading to Green Lantern. "We can't end this too quickly." He removes the light from around her and continues with his attention on the army ahead of him.

"Such disregard for their fellow man is wretched."

"Yeah, well, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it."

With inhuman strength, Wonder Woman Lifts the thick, previously knocked door and flies headlong into the opposition holding, deflecting and misdirecting the army.

"You don't find it surreal that we are doing as Nightwing has instructed?"

With a cracked smile, Green Lantern replies, "No more surreal than watching Nightwing say 'jump' and hear Batman ask 'How high'."

With a smile, Wonder Woman commences pummeling the enemy.

Flash and Nightwing come to a large, metallic door. They stop just outside it. Nightwing pulls his mask off, pulls out two small metal shards out of the mask and gets on his knees in front of the door. Wally interjects a thought, "You know I could just go in and get her by myself. Vibrate through walls and"

"My daughter can't. We have to clear a path for you. Besides, I think I'm going to have to distract Blood for your getaway."

Nightwing gets the door open and gets ready to fly. "Are you suggesting I can't outrun Brother Blood?"

"Not him, I think there's someone else." A hiss rises from the door and it opens. Nightwing gets to his feet. When it's two feet open, a gray and black streak flies into the doorway. By the time the door is completely open, Flash is standing above the prone bodies of five heavily armed troopers.  
"Who?"

Flash lifts up Nightwing and taps into the Speed Force. Nightwing replies, "That's not your concern. I need you to make sure you save my daughter. Keep running until you're out of here… Keep running until you get to the Watchtower. Contact Dr. Midnight or Mr. Terrific and make sure someone checks up on her. Keep running no matter what happens."

"What's going on Dick?"

"Just do it. I need you to. And when all that's done, get Clark... then tell Diana to let loose, hurry up with the guards and then help Clark."

Three H.I.V.E. troopers are running down a dark hallway, each holding a high impact weapon. In the shadows, they see a bright red object hunching down, poised to pounce. All at once they begin to pull out their artillery and aim at the darkness. The Flash costume clad hero jumps above them and knocks the rifles away. A swift kick to the middle guard's head knocks him to the ground. He then grabs the right trooper's gun with both hands, pushes it into his stomach and tosses him toward the other guard. He leaps in the air and flip kicks the two fallen guards. He checks them before calling out, "It's clear, let's go."

Arthur steps out of the shadows with the prone Superman and drags him slowly into the light of the hallway. "Well, you surprised them."

Looking down, Batman tugs at the rubbery cloth. "It's not my fault. This costume is not best suited for stealth."

Arthur looks to Batman and smirks.

"I look ridiculous in this thing."

Arthur replies, "Wally wears it."

"Wally looks ridiculous in this thing."

"And there's no cape. How can you bear it?"

Superman shakes his head and says "Can we focus here? We need to get out quickly."

"If the concentration of magma and brimstone is any indication of the center of the compound, then we're definitely headed out of the facility; however, it's not easy to determine the distance. Most likely, we're underground based on both Blood's and the H.I.V.E.'s usual base schematics."

"We have to find an elevator?"

"Unless we can find stairs."

Superman lifts his head to Batman and asks, "How much time do you think we have?"

"Chances are, Flash and Nightwing are already in Blood's chambers right now. I believe that gives us three minutes."

"All right then. Let's just keep heading from where these soldiers are coming from."

Flash comes up to a large door way and kicks in the doorway. He's running on a stone bridge over a pool of blood. The two heroes can't see the end of the bridge. Nightwing tells him to stop. Flash slows down and stops just short of seeing a fuming teenager yelling at a dark black flame.

Nightwing lets go of the Flash and lets him fly off "Go, now."

The black and gray streak circles the throne and heads out of the room. It's shortly followed by large red ball of flame.

Nightwing jumps into the light of the chamber, "Hey Blood have you seen my daughter anywhere? She's about yay big…. Black hair… looks like an alien? Ring any bells?"

Brother Blood looks directly at bloodied hero and charges. "This is your fault. You did this to me." Vines become alive behind Nightwing and reach out for his legs. "You're going to cry blood when I'm finished with you."

Nightwing leaps into the air, avoiding the vines. "Wow, that was a terrible pun. You're still new at this, so I'll forgive it this one time." He rolls to the ground and is immediately on his feet. He circles the throne room avoiding the hellion. Brother Blood points his arm in Nightwing's direction and a flame bursts out. Nightwing springs to his hands and feels a sting of pain in his shoulder. He instantly shifts his weight to compensate, but the shift makes him move closer to the fire. Through his costume, he feels a slight burst of heat along his hip. He ducks behind Blood's throne. Once there he looks down to see a slight flame has engulfed his costume. While he pats on it to put out the pain, he feels a bruise forming from the day's turn of events. He decides to taunt Blood further to truly infuriate him. "If that's the best you have, you might want to rethink this whole "world conquering" thing. There's a whole world of people who could make you cry… and I don't even have powers."

For a second, Nightwing thinks to himself about whether his plan is going to work or not. Before he has the chance to think further, Blood has walked into a position where he can assault. Another flame flies and Nightwing pushes off the throne towards the pool of blood. A tentacle of hardened blood rises from the pool and falls toward Nightwing. He stops himself and dodges the monstrous object. The blood liquefies leaving little pools in the ground where the tentacle left an indentation.

Rolling he sees another bolt of fire pointing from Blood's arm. In a last ditch effort, Nightwing dives into the bloody water. In the water, Nightwing swims as far as he can toward the bottom. The depth of the pool is nerve racking. There is a copper taste invading his mouth. Blood begins to seep into his cracked lens, but the thickness of the crimson liquid allows no visibility. All Nightwing can do now is estimate where he is, how deep he is and how deep he can go. At ten feet below the surface, he feels the bottom. He grabs a few rocks and starts to swim laterally along the pool. He keeps swimming and thinks. "Blood is going to try to lift all the blood in pillars like he had done previously. He's then going to realize he hasn't received that much telekinesis when he sapped Connor of his powers during their last encounter, so instead, he's going to solidify the blood." Nightwing feels acid in his lungs as they crave for air. He swims toward the surface. "I think Garth told me, he must stand equidistance from the overcast spell, so that would put him…"

Nightwing plants his right hand on the rim of the pool and pulls himself out of the water and vaults forward. He immediately throws two of the rocks toward two feet in front of the altar. The first on hits Blood in the nose and the other one immediately hits him in the left shoulder. With as much speed as he can muster, he leaps into Blood. With a remaining rock in his hand, he begins to punch Blood. Each hit feels like electricity up his forearm, but he punches nonetheless. The effort is well worthwhile as he pushes Blood back farther and farther until he hit's the other end of the pools edge. They both fall into the pool and Nightwing continues to pummel his foe. Nightwing wraps his legs around Blood in such a way, that he's faced down in the blood, but he has his right hand free to reach back and hold the edge of the pool and his left hand free to hit Blood in certain spots forcing his air supply to recede.

Nightwing screams, "You need him alive or else Trigon can never come! Your deal will forfeit and you'll go back to hell! Is my daughter that important to you?"

Instantly, Nightwing feels his right shoulder dislocate and his collarbone shatter as it feels as if a burning demolition crane has grabbed him. The pain forces him to let Blood go. Nightwing is lifted up out of the water and thrown like a rag doll to the ground face down. He hears a booming shaking his very psyche. **"Dosvidanya Tovarich**."

Nightwing looks up to see the red ball of flame that chased his daughter and Flash. If it caught up to them, they'd never escape alive. Nightwing had to pull it away. Nightwing knew that the only thing it hates more than anything else in this world is the guy that sent him to Hell. Nightwing looks up to see Hell's Superman. Ishmael Gregor. Sabbac.

To be continued……

Yeah, I know… I probably went too far with this one. I realize I don't need to write this now as Beatty and Dixon are both doing a good job on Nightwing and now it's WAY too far fetched, but I figured I should finish the story regardless. Again, any criticism or advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'm sorry with how late this installment was. My life's been very WTF? recently and I haven't had time to sit down and write. Fortunately, there are only two more chapters, so I'll try to finish it this month.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

In this world, the idea of Hell misinterprets its actual purpose. When a person dies, their soul escapes their body and the presence of the person becomes pure thought. It looks back on its life through vivid memory. At the same time, this consciousness has pure insight of the previous life's actions and completely understands the pains they may have caused to others in relation to the good they've done for others. In many cases, they feel infinite remorse for their actions and send themselves to a realm or suffering and pain… Hell.

In similar words: in this world, the people believe that Hell is a place God sends souls to punish them for the wrong doings for their lives, but it's more like God shows the souls what they've done and they willingly punish themselves in a separate realm. The realm is made up of the limits of a person's imagination. The greater the remorse, the greater the pain they cause themselves. The world was looked over by Lucifer, the mourning star, and his fellow fallen angels, cherubs and muses as was decreed by the God of this universe. In this realm, the thought of pain is a reality and is physical while matter and physics become purely subjective.

Magic is the conscious manipulation of the laws of physics. People are able to tap into that realm of pure thought and bring it into the physical realm making the universe bend to the will of a magic caster. One such person who has tapped into this realm is Ishmael Gregor. He taps into the power of the fallen angels of this hellish realm and is fueled by the infinity of pain and suffering that is Hell.

* * *

Right at this very moment, Nightwing's laying down at the mercy of the monstrosity. To top it off, Nightwing banished Ishmael to the depths of Hell during their last encounter, so it's quite understandable that Sabbac is going to want to make this personal.

"**Mr. Grayson… it's been a time since we've last seen each other,**" booms the multi-tonal guttural voice of the demon floating feet away from him. "**If you'll please give me a minute, my friend, I'll be continuing this little reunion we've started. Unfortunately, business precedes pleasure.**"

Coughing on the edge of the pool of blood, Brother Blood slowly rolls over to see the hero who nearly killed him. With as much rage as his tired body and lungs could muster, he screams, "You see? You can't win against me." He then looks at Sabbac and orders "Kill him, now."

The red pigmented villain floats toward the prone body of Brother Blood. "**You're proving to be more trouble than you're worth little one.**" With a huge hand, Ishmael grabs the leg of the would-be dictator and holds him upside-down. "**You're only needed to father a son with the daughter of Trigon… your plan to brainwash the Justice League was tolerated… maybe even anticipated for entertainment, but you keep risking everything, including your own life.**" Sabbac leans down and grabs Blood by his leg. With no effort, he holds his whole blood stained frame as high as he can so that Blood could surely see his own seriousness.

"What do you think you're doing? You can't talk to me that way!" Blood screams as if he thinks it would have an effect; however Nightwing and Sabbac both know it does not. When a person like Ishmael Gregor receives the powers of a god, hierarchy is just a word. He'll do whatever he wants; however he wants to; to whoever he wants.

"**Trigon just needs you to produce an offspring**." Then, smiling the broadest smile imaginable, the crimson demon said, "**Fortunately, there are limited body parts required for your survival and reproduction.**" With that, an ungodly crunch sound is heard in the Sabbac's closed fist holding the leg of Brother Blood. A cry of pain reverberates throughout the chamber. In an instant, the leader of a cult becomes a weeping teenager.

He slowly floats up, high above Nightwing. Soon, Baron Blood can't be seen, but his scream echoes.

Then there is silence.

A red dot descends from above. It holds nothing. Then there is the familiar bellowing voice. He speaks the words: "**That keeps our mutual friend occupied. Now it's time that we reacquaint ourselves**."

Nightwing forces himself up to his feet. He feels a familiar sting behind his thigh. He has a broken his tibia. Shattered collar. Dislocated shoulder. Three broken ribs. Heat burns across his midsection. Bleeding from numerous deep cuts across his face and throat. The mother of all headaches. Nightwing walks over to the altar and pulls a two foot bone off. He stands as still as he can as Sabbac finally reaches ground level.

Sabbac finally sees Nightwing in an offensive stance and chuckles, "**I can't tell if you're a cosmonaut or a обезьяна**."

With his good leg, Nightwing leaps and swings down with the bone. Just before it makes contact with Sabbac's grin, he disappears and then reappears behind him with his arms folded and laughing in the most arrogant of ways.

With lightning speed, Nightwing turns around and lunges at Sabbac. Sabbac grabs Nightwing's wrists with the simplest of gestures and tosses him toward Blood's throne. Nightwing hits it hard enough to topple it. With a matter of fact tone, Sabbac continues, "**Can you imagine what hell is like**?" Dick's response is struggling to get up from the throne.

The words come out, "**It feels a lot like this**," and Ishmael releases a mouthful of flame on Nightwing's legs. Nightwing collapses down on the ground as the pain fills his body so much, he can no longer isolate the location of the pain. Of coarse he screams, as well, but the sound is drowned out with the pain.

"**It's not like other fire. Real fire would kill nerve receptors. You'd no longer feel it after a while. This fire is just pure agony. Can you imagine that pain for an eternity? Personally, I was given invulnerability, but even I wasn't immune to that fire**."

Sabbac smile ends as a serious face comes to him. **"And you sent me there." **Sabbac lets loose another blast of fire engulfing his chest and arms. After three seconds of torture, Sabbac stops.

Nightwing looks up and throws the bone at Sabbac. Sabbac lets it bounce off his forehead. Sabbac rolls his eyes and says, "**Definitely a обезьяна**."

Sabbac flies up to Nightwing to just within an inch of Nightwing and grins. He presses a huge clawed hand on the shattered collarbone of Nightwing. Nightwing screams. His left arm grabs the huge fist while his right hand grabs a thick black goatee on the demon's face and pulls. Nothing.

Sabbac looks down and says, "**You see? This is why I was angered by that izverg up there.**" Sabbac takes his other hand and extends his pinky finger… equipped with a claw like nail.

He inserts the nail into Dick's stomach and twists. "**The best way to break you is through her… you'd be surprised what I could do to her. I almost got her too. That one hero is fast…**" Sabbac leans in closely to Nightwing and whispers, "**It doesn't matter you know. She isn't safe. I will get her." **That phrase got Nightwing to throw the rest of his strength into a right hook across his face. The impact came back through his hand and broke his knuckles.

"**That's the обезьяна I want to see!"**

Nightwing looks back and with great effort asks, "What the hell does that mean?"

Sabbac removes his hand from Nightwing's stomach and places an open palm on Nightwing's forearm and slowly adds pressure until a snap is heard.

Over the wail, Sabbac exclaims matter-of-fact, "**You see, we regarded our 'space men' as the bravest men in our country. We also trained monkeys do the same job. The monkeys were as successful as the cosmonauts and the cosmonauts lived the ridicule of having the bravery and intelligence of monkeys. Of coarse the difference is that the monkey didn't know he was strapped to a spaceship that could burn any minute… so we call fools who look brave 'обезьяны'.**"

Through the tears and his head hanging down, Nightwing asks Sabbac, "Then what do you do to someone that's about to be hit really hard?"

Instantly, a blue streak flies in and hits Sabbac across the jaw.

* * *

Nothing can stop Sabbac from doing what he wants… so the solution is to change his wants. It's been Nightwing's little trick for ages. Always anger and distract with words and actions to keep them focused on the kid taunting kid in the bright colored clothes. Keep their minds off the innocent, keep them concentrating on hurting you, make them forget anything else but causing you pain. Wait for the big guns can come and do their thing… sometimes it's the only way to win.

* * *

Sabbac flies back ten feet and up twelve. Sabbac realizes what happened and flies into the blue blur. Over the course of five seconds, Sabbac and Superman fight around the room at such a speed that Nightwing could only see a few sparse holds.

After the five seconds, Sabbac held Superman against the ground. Sabbac's left forearm was pressing hard against the back of Superman's neck. Sabbac's eyes were aflame with yellow light and a grin across his face. A trickle of black blood lined the side of his chin.

"**This is a high point of my day**."

Superman kicks against the ground flying high into the air out of sight. When they land, Superman is above him throwing a right hand into the face of the demon. The two make a huge indentation into the ground of the throne room. The blood from the surrounding pool leaks into the hole surrounding the two powerhouses as they pound at each other furiously.

Superman throws a haymaker, Sabbac throws an uppercut. Superman swings his two fists onto Sabbac's head. Sabbac takes the hit and grabs Superman's leg and throws him against a side wall. Superman stops himself and flies toward Sabbac with lightning speed which takes Sabbac across the room into the wall. Superman throws a blurry mesh of fists into Sabbac.

Superman begins to let up, but Sabbac reaches his left hand out and grabs him by the neck. With his right hand, Sabbac punches Superman's jaw. Sabbac doesn't let go of Superman's throat and continues to pummel. Superman looks up and flares heat vision burning away all of Sabbac's hair, Sabbac counters by blowing hellfire into Superman's face.

Superman never cried out in pain as much as he does as the flames engulf his head. Every pain he has ever felt was rolled into one burst of agony.

"**Hellfire's pretty painful, isn't it? No one is immune to it**."

Sabbac knows he can really hurt… maybe even kill Superman. When they brought his comatose body, he used him as a punching dummy to truly test the limits of his newfound strength. After a few minutes, he began to show the strength of power of Satan is stronger than he previously assumed. He hits Superman five more times and Superman goes down. Sabbac stands above him pounding down on deeper into the earth, unaware of the proximity of the altar.

Nightwing finally gets up from the throne. The pain is almost overcoming him. He teeters over to the altar. Nightwing collapses on the altar and pushes with all the strength in his good leg. The sharp fragments along the edge fall on the back of Sabbac. The collapsing altar rolls off an immovable Sabbac. But it gets his attention. Sabbac turns around to see a young, swollen, bleeding Nightwing stand two feet away from him… flicking him off would Nightwing do that?. Sabbac in turn gets up off the man of steel and walks toward Nightwing. He raises his hand and… a huge golden streak comes out of nowhere slamming into Sabbac.

"Perhaps now, you will test your god's gifts against mine?"

Wonder Woman pummels Sabbac with abandon and fury. Sabbac hits back once for every three hits Wonder Woman gets in. Nightwing in turn falls to his backside as the impact from the blows pushes the paper thin forte of Nightwing.

Instantly, a large gray and black figure stops right next to Nightwing. He picks the prone hero in his arms and runs.

"Sabbac?" Wally yells in an almost incomprehensible speed. "You tried to take on Sabbac by yourself? Why didn't you tell me? I could have grabbed both you and the girl, you didn't have to take on Sabbac! That was just stupid on your part! I could have outraced him to the end of the Earth and back! You didn't have to…"

His rambling was silenced by Nightwing raising his hand. "When he realized you were too fast for him, he would have stopped in the middle of a metropolitan area and started doing damage there for spite. I had to try to keep him contained in the base… threatening Brother Blood was the only way to bring him back… torturing me was the only thing keeping him there."

After a moments pause… probably an eternity of thinking for the Flash, Wally responds, "I'm sure there were other ways."

They stop inside a transporter device in the one of the cities it looked momentarily like Star City and then are in the Watchtower medical bay. Dr. Midnight is there with rubber gloves on his hands looking over the alien child. "What happened?" The good doctor asks.

The Flash looks up and responds, "Doesn't matter… Fix him."

Nightwing called out to Flash to return to the fight. Flash looks at a nearby monitor, up at Midnight, over to the baby and back to Nightwing. He leaves for a second and is back instantaneously with a stool. He sits down and says, "Are you kidding? This is the Justice League. No one person can take out the Justice League by themselves."

* * *

And Wally West is right. A few minutes into the fight, Arthur suggests that the source of Sabbac's strength is the base itself. With a thought, Green Lantern flies into the chamber and drags Sabbac into the light. Batman still in the Flash uniform takes the suggestion further by ordering Superman to drag him to Atlantis. With protests from Arthur, the League drags Sabbac to the depths of the ocean where his powers are drained by the magical properties of Atlantis. They further pound on Sabbac until eventually, he succumbs to the forces against him and collapses in the middle of the ocean.

* * *

Well, all that's left is the Epilogue which is actually the first thing I wrote, but have to correct because of the changes I made during writing this story. I hope you all enjoyed my first story ever written on-line. Thank you to all who wrote reviews, compliments and suggestions. I will be making some changes over time grammar and the Wonder Woman fight with a lasso and will be displaying them under the title 2ne edit… final edit. Suggestions are appreciated.

I'm writing a prologue to a Batman story called Back to the Beginning's Edge which I hope will go better than this one. Again, I would never put this story in continuity and am writing it for my own amusement. Thank you for your time.

One a side note--- which chapter has the best style for setting up the story and titling the chapters? Just asking.


	9. Epilogue

Right this is the end. I actually wrote most of this before I wrote the rest of the story, but I had to tweak some things. Again, critisism and advise is always greatly appreciated.

* * *

Epilogue 1 

Wally and Dick sit in a booth at a diner in their civilian clothes. It's a really old fashioned diner with wood paneling and dark red leather cushions. There's a light smell of cigarette smoke coming from the smoking section and the sound of clanking dishes in the kitchen. There's a thick aroma greasy food and syrup that almost makes the air sticky. Wally's dressed in a red sweatshirt and jeans while Dick in his solid black dress shirt and dress pants. Dick stared down at his coffee mug and Wally looked directly at his friend.

As bad as Wally feels not having slept in two days, he knows that Dick has had it worse. The scratches on his face from the earlier fights that rouged his face actually improve his pale complexion. Dick is in a lot of pain. His shoulder stings from what Clark did. His ribs and head from Diana. His leg from Arthur. Not to mention the Sabbac assault. He's in so much pain, but him also being drained makes it so he doesn't care. There was awkwardness yesterday when Wally woke Dick up after visiting hours ended. Reluctantly, he let J'onn mind the baby on the tower so Dick could sleep. Wally and J'onn dealt with monitor duty that night. Four hours later, Dick woke up. J'onn agreed to stay and watch the baby while the two friends spent some "catch up" time together.

They were better friends than most people realized. However, tragedy and a search for an individual identity that usually comes with the mask makes strains on fellowships like these. In the JLA, Wally and Kyle would hang out a lot, but that was more because they were the powerful league members in their twenties. They were more friends who were around each other. Kyle was learning to use his powers for those first few years. Wally had already had years of experience as Flash before joining the JLA and a decade plus of him being Kid Flash. And then just as Kyle was finally getting the hang of being a hero, he flies off the planet to deal with the unwanted beating of a friend of his. They never really had the chance to bond, but now Wally saw being a member of a team of superheroes as a job with co-workers

Dick on the other hand, stayed on the Titans. He could have gone up to the League, but he felt it was better to lead a team then to give advice and be a backup Bruce like Huntress. For about ten years, Wally was his best friend. Roy and Garth were really good friends with Dick, but Garth kept going back to the sea and Roy was always too ashamed of his drug habit to open up to the rest of them. Wally, Donna and Dick would be the only constants in each other's lives until Wally tried to lead a normal life and Dick was forced to move on from being Robin. Dick and Donna were all that were left of the old gang of heroes. When Donna died…

But now, they're in a diner in Keystone City. They started talking about recent events in their lives and the stories just flowed.

"So then what?" Wally asks bringing his coffee up to his mouth and sipping.

"Well it turns out she actually was a meta without knowing it. She gave off this pheromone that excites the medulla and hinders the frontal lobe. Essentially, just by being around her, people do whatever she says regardless of logic. The longer she's around a person, the greater her influence."

Wally starts to laugh a little. "So she physically messed with you emotionally. How long did this go on for?"

Watching Wally smile brings out a chuckle in him. "Just a couple of weeks."

Wally crooks his head to the side asking, "Is that long?"

"Well," Dick just can't quite find the right word combination to make it more factual and less absurd. "Bruce was around her for two hours and he almost gave her a Robin uniform and all the codes to the batcave."

He fails miserably. Wally's laughing uncontrollably. Dick isn't that far behind. He keeps trying to stop himself, but the harder he tries to stop the harder the chuckle and longer the laugh. Hearing Wally's laughter just puts it all into perspective and Grayson realizes for the first time that it is all just so silly. I mean it's… just… weird and silly. Really.

And Wally, being that one friend who comes up with the one sentence that is just perfect for the situation says, "Wow, you're lucky she didn't ask you to marry her."

Dick's laughter slowly drifts off, not sure whether or not he could touch on that subject. Wally sees his reaction and stares wide-eyed not saying a single word.

"What?" Dick asks. He tries to find a good excuse, but can only come up with. "I didn't sign the papers." Then he tries to cover himself. "You have to understand, she was really powerful… She made me think I had her memories."

Wally, with a lot of effort asks, "Like what?"

"I thought I was racially discriminated against."

Laughter.

"I thought I was a troubled youth that picked fights with everyone."

Uncontrollable laughter.

"I thought Batman helped me want to be less violent."

They just can't stop themselves. It just makes no sense. "Would you two like anything else?" a waitress asks. They both look back at her. Wally is the first to reply, "Just a refill, thanks."

The laughter dies away. They sit in silence looking at each other. Wally breaks the silence, "Can I ask you a question?"

Dick just looks at Wally quizzically. Wally continues, "What was the worst part of it?"

If anyone else asks that question, it would be awkward to answer. They both know that he didn't mean anything by it. Wally just wants to understand more of what he went through. Being forced to fight for Brother Blood. Maybe it was the hopelessness of the task or the thought of fighting his family. Dick doesn't hesitate in thought. "I was afraid of loosing her. Every time I thought of getting help… even trying to send that message to you…. I was just-- so afraid of loosing her that-- I can honestly say… It scared me." Wally looks on as he felt helpless.

"No one knows death like Wally West and Dick Grayson."

Dick looked on as his friend recalled the past.

"Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris. Max Mercury."

"Donna."

"Uncle Hal and Ollie."

"Uncle Clark."

"My--" Wally chokes on the words. He continued, "My twins"

"My parents." Dick was only eight. "Tony Zucco." Wally looked back at Dick. Tony Zucco killed Dick's parents, why was he mentioned? "Judge Watkins." Slowly, he began to realize how different it was for them. Whereas Wally's was more "people close to him", Dick was mentioning people he witnessed die. Judge Watkins was tied up and dropped to the bottom of Gotham harbor by Two-face. Right after being forced to choose between Judge Watkins and Batman, Two-face then beat Dick with a baseball bat to within an inch of his life. Arguably the most traumatizing things to happen to a person in the course of a year… within the first decade of any life.

"Kole… Aquagirl… Dove… Hawk…Lilith…" teammates

"Jason Todd…"

"Enemies, friends… Sometimes I feel like, I have to try harder to hold onto the people around me so that I don't loose the few I have left."

"Yeah… when you loose a lot… sometimes… I feel like I have to push the ones closer to me away… because… it just gets too painful… you know?"

Wally pauses for a second. He considers what Dick is saying. It really doesn't sound like what he does, but Dick continues…, "But that only works for about a half a second before I realize how much I need them." Wally is still silent for a time. Dick had dropped his gaze some time during the conversation, but now he looks up to see Wally. He declares, "I'm not like Bruce. Not that way anyway. I might have turned out like him if things were different… if there were no Titans… no Kory… but there was… I can't separate myself from those around me like that. I know that if I did… well… it wouldn't be worth it in the first place."

Wally remains silent for a long time. Dick breaks the silence. "Listen, I think I should head back up to the Watchtower. You know… see how Mar'i is doing."

"Is that what you're going to name her?"

"For now… I want Kory to name her, but I'll call her Mar'i until Kory comes back."

Hearing those words, Wally's heart sinks. "Dick…"

"Look… I know. She's most likely not coming back… I'm just trying to hold on to that slight possibility."

Wally nods in concession. As unlikely as her return is… it's rarely ever hurtful to hold onto the hope in this world.

"I have to go to work now. You sure you're okay, Dick?"

Dick looks down at the black and white tiled floor. He looks up at his friend smiling and says, "I've been better."

* * *

Epilogue 2 

Outside the diner, two "Gods of Olympus" look on their Titans. One is dressed in brightness, while the other is in shadow. Each influenced the young men in ways beyond what they would think… and they continue to inspire. Clark and Bruce look down on what they have produced together… a competent hero of his own right more capable, intelligent and selfless than they could ever hope.

Of course, like most parents, they're torn between giving them their space and "checking up" on them. As a compromise, Batman has two bugs in the diner and leaves the transceiver in his belt.

"You've really got to work on your trust issues, Bruce."

"You do realize this is coming from the man that can eavesdrop on this conversation from Metropolis."

"There's a difference. I'm not bugging their conversation."

"But the option is open to you. I have to have faith in you not prying, while you can see I'm definitely not."

"Do you want to do the fall back test?"

"…… no."

Clark thinks to himself, at least he's not taking out the binoculars.

How can two people so different, be friends? They're not. They respect each other and know each other better than anyone… but the substance of friendship can never equal that of the pair in the diner.

Superman and Batman are the world's finest partnership… without question. The compliment of intelligence and power is unmatched. The strength and power of Superman is only surpassed by his compassion. Batman is the apex of human endurance, study and training. Together, they are amazing to watch, but they aren't friends… they're symbols.

Batman is a symbol of the darkness and intensity. Superman is a symbol of light and the choice of doing the right thing without the encumbrance of inability. Batman finds more companionship and respect with a man like Jim Gordon, Lucius Fox and Alfred than he ever could with Clark Kent. Often times, Superman is isolated by his intimidation to other heroes. Of the exceptions are Diana and Arthur, but they have much stronger connections to their own people than they could in Superman. Only as Clark Kent can Superman hold the precious connections of human relations… Perry White, Jimmy Olsen… Lois Lane.

So where does that leave the two heroes masquerading as civilians within the diner? Nightwing is Dick Grayson with a mask. When Wally West adopted the Flash identity from his uncle, the Flash became Wally West. From the first time they met as Robin and Kid Flash, they never had to hide anything from each other because they were themselves in and out of the costumes.

Superman, as always, is the first to break the silence. "Why didn't he trust me?"

"He couldn't tell you. His communication was being monitored."

"If he used a device to inform Flash, I'd imagine he could have also found a way to contact me as well."

"Would you have just fallen down and given yourself up?"

"…… for him? Yes."

Batman looks back for a moment. "He also needed to bring in the League."

"It all worked out in the end… I guess that counts for something."

Batman looks down back at his son. "In all honesty, his plan shouldn't have worked. He relied too heavily on people's faith in him… especially John and Diana."

"You did files on the League. Plan on ways to be the hero if we do the whole costume change thing. Did he use them?"

Batman has a stoic expression on him when he explains. "There are three sections to my files. The first part is which heroes would be most effective in apprehending or defeating the most powerful of us. The second consists of tools to use to apprehend or defeat heroes. The third part is effectively confronting directly… in some cases, at the expense of my own life." Batman pauses for a second and continues, "Dick is the only other person with access to the files for the first section… and he doesn't know about any of them."

"So he did this all himself?"

Batman smiles, "Garth supplied him with the Escrima sticks. Cyborg supplied him with a large portion of the mechanics. Donna supplied him with the apples of Hesperedese. I didn't even know they existed. Dick didn't do this alone. He rarely ever does anything alone."

"Is that a twinge of jealousy I hear?"

Batman pauses. "Envious, if anything."

"Wow… you've become real emotional Grandpa Bruce."

Batman begins to groan slightly and retorts, "Grand Uncle Clark."

Superman's smile immediately fades.

* * *

Epilogue 3 

The hum from the teleporter echoes throughout the satellite headquarters of the JLA. The accuracy of the atoms aligning themselves so rapidly to form Dick Grayson dressed in his civilian cloths is one of the most unappreciated aspects of the satellite. Even his blood soaked bandages retain their tapered edges and the crease on his left pants leg holds themselves as if he was picked up precisely as he was to where he now is. Precision of a computer is always expected, yet precision in human planning is envied. That's fairly humorous.

Nightwing walks heavily down the corridors despite the great weight that has been lift off of him. His body and mind scream for rest, but his heart and desire only knows of one thing right now. She's in the infirmary.

A seven foot metallic door opens itself as he approaches it. The vision inside catches Dick off guard. J'onn is standing in the doorway by himself. He's looking on three monitors. One has dossiers on the most infamous criminals across the globe displayed. One has a map of the globe in a panorama with little red lights illuminating across it. The third one has a list of heroes organized alphabetically. Upon Dick's entrance, J'onn replies to his internal questions.

"Ease your fears Nightwing. Your daughter is in the care of Dr. Midnight. He wished to do another medical checkup. Furthermore, his handling is more paternal."

"You called me Nightwing."

J'onn twists his body at his hips to look on the hero behind him with a curious expression on his face. "Would you prefer I call you Dick Grayson?"

Dick smile hobbles around him to an adjoining door. "Not necessarily, I just wanted to see you ask a question."

J'onn nods and turns around to look at the screens again. "Because I am a telepath."

Dick smiles, "On the Titans, we've had our share of telepaths… empaths… They were always the strongest of us. And the ones we had to watch out for the most."

J'onn closes his eyes. He's always frustrated by people's mistrust of him.

"They could always tell when we were troubled and needed someone to talk to, but unfortunately they never understood that non-telepaths lacked that ability for when they were in need."

J'onn looks back at the young hero behind him. "Maybe they never needed the emotional help."

Dick presses a few buttons on a keypad beside the door to the medical labs and replies to him, "J'onn, everybody feels that way all the time. That doesn't mean they're right."

J'onn looks on unable to reply. "For whatever it's worth J'onn, I'm sorry. Not just for what happened in New York. I designed the holding devices in Brother Blood's headquarters. I engineered your containing box with a telepathic inhibitor. I didn't know what the influence of hellfire would do to you."

"It's completely understandable what you've done.

"I understood that when you were awakened, you'd be blind in everyway. You couldn't see, hear, feel and your sense of telepathy would have been blocked. You probably wouldn't have even know you were really awake--

"There is no need to apolo-"

"Yes I do J'onn," Dick interjects. "Even if it was justified. I put you in the worst position of all. Denying it or accepting it for what it was isn't enough. I sincerely am sorry for what I did to you."

"I assure you…. I am fine."

Dick nods and looks into the medical lab at Dr. Midnight. He walks toward his daughter.

"Thank you for that," J'onn whispers as the doors to the medic lab close. He looks at the door. Who is he? Dick Grayson? Nightwing? Robin? The son of Batman? The leader of the Titans?

J'onn doesn't know for certain. A small stretch of flesh extends from his shoulder and clicks a button on a console. It brings up a small screen of the video feed going into the infirmary. J'onn sees that, whoever he is at any time in is life, all that matters is who he is at this moment.

Right now: he's a man … holding his daughter in his arms… singing her to sleep.

* * *

I would like to apologize for the extremely terrible delay. I actually thought I'd already posted this, but someone reminded me that I was waiting until I finished more of my next story. Again, I apologize.

I'd like topost my next story as soon as I can, but it's taking so long and nothing is really happening. If anyone is available to help me with it, i.e. proof read for grammar, inconsistency etc. it would be greatly appreciated. It's going to be a Batman story and I haven't gotten to much action yet, so it's boring the heck out of me right now.

Again, thanks to everyone that helped me with this and I'm sorry for wasing the time of anyone who didn't like it.


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